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I was pointing out that people can end up with similar superficial features without common heritage. I doubt anyone considers Indonesians and Brazilians the sam
by gregjor 2y ago
I was pointing out that people can end up with similar superficial features without common heritage. I doubt anyone considers Indonesians and Brazilians the same race, but then again I’m pretty sure a large number of Americans would call both “black.” As evidence I offer the fake “race” Americans call Hispanic or LatinX, a definition that includes people with very different genetic and social heritages, and one mostly rejected by members of the supposed Hispanic race. That’s a political construct and convenience, not a real thing in any sense.
Race exists as a social construct. Collections of genes concentrated in a population describe something, I called it heritage. Sometimes the social construct and the heritage correspond, sometimes not. “African” only describes a race based on superficial features, not genetic variation.
I live in east Asia among people I (white American) always thought of as members of the same race, Asian. But I have learned that the people here have different racial definitions and boundaries, more tuned to their own social constructs and ideas about heritage and history. No doubt people from the African continent have different ideas about race than I got raised with. So in that sense “race” is a social construct, because different societies have different and conflicting definitions. Which do we call correct? My American/western notion of Asian as a race, or the definitions the people of Asia use?