People identify themselves by their race on census forms and other surveys, but that’s only one part of the story. They’re also perceived by others, in ways that are often unintentionally biased. Nancy Lopez, a professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico, calls this “street race” – how other people see you in everyday interactions. People make assumptions and assessments about your racial identity all the time, from what you wear and how you talk to the way you walk. People who have mixed-race heritage are particularly vulnerable to street races. Their faces can be interpreted as being Black, white or Hispanic based on skin tone, hair texture and other physical features. If someone is perceived as having a predominantly Black background, they may be at greater risk for a wide range of health problems and discriminated against in the workplace and the justice system.
In the last century, many anthropologists have been pushing back on biological conceptions of race hierarchy. Early on, the Columbia University anthropologist Franz Boas challenged one of the key fundaments of racial typology – cranium size – and showed that differences among individuals can be explained by factors other than a person’s biology. More recently, a broad anthropological consensus has emerged that there are no discrete biologically defined groups, and that the term “race” should be abandoned for scientific purposes.
Even so, the racial categories we use to classify people have long had profound social and economic implications. They’ve been used to justify European colonial expansion, oppression and slavery of non-European peoples and have fueled theories of biological inferiority that underpinned medical mistreatment of people with African ancestry (such as forced sterilization) and the horrific Tuskegee Syphilis study.
Despite the fact that science has debunked biological concepts of race, people still think and act as if races exist. The persistence of racial inequalities such as lower life expectancy, higher crime rates and unequal access to wealth, education and opportunity suggest that the concept is not going away any time soon.
It’s important to remember that these inequalities are not a result of biology – they are the result of history and culture. In a society that still values whiteness, for example, it’s no surprise that more than half of whites say their race has helped them get ahead in life, while only 5% of Blacks agree. If we want to reduce the inequalities in our country, we need to tackle the structural causes of racial inequality, not rely on genetic explanations that don’t exist. Continuing to chase genetic explanations will only distract us from more effective solutions. A version of this article originally appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Amy H. Goodman is an associate professor of anthropology at Stanford and co-directs the Center for Multiracial Understanding. She is a past president of the American Anthropological Association and the author of “Mission in the Third World: The Search for Humanity’s Future.” Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post and National Public Radio. Follow her on Twitter at @AHGoodman18.