The Concept of Race

Race is a social construct that has been used to justify oppression, exploitation and inequality. While the term race may seem innocuous and simply refer to the way we distinguish human physical characteristics, it is actually an extremely complex phenomenon that is influenced by both biology and culture. People are born with physical traits that can be used to categorize them by race, but many of these characteristics do not determine a person’s ability or potential for success. Instead, what really makes a difference is the societal environment in which one grows up.

For example, children who grow up in neighborhoods where white people are overrepresented in leadership positions are more likely to believe that they can succeed in any field. When black people grow up in communities where they are overrepresented in poverty and violence, they often feel trapped and that there is no way out. In this racialized environment, black families are more likely to be exposed to a wide range of negative stereotypes that reinforce their sense of inferiority. They are also more likely to be disproportionately policed, criminalized and devalued by the broader community. This is the racialized environmental dynamic that researcher Rashad Shabazz has aptly called “the ghettoization of blackness.”

The idea of race is closely linked with ideas of deterministic biology, and the development of the concept of race can be traced back to 1684 when Francois Bernier published A New Division of the Earth. His classification of people into different races was based on the belief that certain groups are more biologically similar than others. For instance, the second race was characterized by the people of Africa south of the Sahara desert who were distinguished by their smooth Black skin. The people of China and central Asia (including today’s Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Siberia) were deemed part of the third race because of their light complexions, broad shoulders and flat noses.

While debates about the nature of race have continued since that time, much of contemporary scholarship focuses on the concept as an important social construct. Those working within the continental traditions of Phenomenology and Existentialism have looked at how our lived, bodily experiences of race interact with social structural and individual subconscious levels of analysis.

The best thing that people can do when talking about race is to use language that is as clear and concise as possible. When discussing someone’s race, it is generally better to stick with their racial category (Black, Asian American, Hispanic etc.) rather than their ethnicity if they are of mixed ancestry. For example, a person of Middle Eastern and North African descent should be described as Arab American rather than simply Middle Eastern or North African. However, sometimes it is useful to include their nation of origin if the person in question self-identifies as that particular country or region.