For centuries, the term race referred to a social category of people who shared certain visible physical traits such as skin color, hair texture, facial features, and eye shape. Those with similar features were often grouped together in geographic, ethnic, or cultural aggregates such as the “African race” or the “European race.”
For the longest time, most Americans, and even many scholars, believed that these groups of human beings were distinct, separate biologically from other people. In fact, Swedish taxonomist Carl Linnaeus divided the human species into several racial categories in the 1700s. These groups were labeled Americaus, Africaus, Europeaus, Asiaticus, and Monstrosus (a catch-all for wild and feral individuals as well as those with birth defects). Linnaeus imagined these racial types as part of a hierarchy, higher forms of life closer to God.
Moreover, it was widely accepted that these racial distinctions were natural and unchanging. This view was bolstered by the fact that the scientific establishment at the time, particularly in Euro-American societies, was heavily influenced by religious ideas.
Over the decades, however, research has overwhelmingly refuted the idea that there are distinct biogenetically different races of humans. DNA studies have made it clear that all human beings are very closely related, and that there is a great deal of genetic variation within and between “racial” groups.
The truth is that most differences in health outcomes between people of different racial groups in the United States and most places around the world are due to systemic inequitable living conditions, rather than differences in their genes. In a country that claims to be a democracy, this means that if communities of color are not provided with the same opportunities as white neighborhoods, they will have poorer outcomes, including high rates of infant mortality and chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
As a result, anthropologists and other researchers have shifted away from the language of race and toward the more accurate term population to describe differences in genetic characteristics between different groups. They have also shifted from the idea of separate, distinct races to the more nuanced notion that these differences in health and other outcomes are the result of a complex interplay between genotype (the genetic makeup of an individual) and environment (the conditions in which an individual is born, grows up, lives and works).
This does not mean, however, that racial identity remains irrelevant or without importance. In fact, it is very important to understand how the racial construct has been used throughout history, and how it still plays an essential role in our society. This includes the ways that Americans and people around the world use it to explain differences in lived experience, as well as to justify policies and practices of exclusion and oppression. The question for anthropologists today is not whether or not racism exists, but how best to respond to it. This article was originally published in American Anthropologist, Fall 2016. Click to read the full article.