Negroid

race

race, one of the group of populations regarded as constituting humanity. The differences that have historically determined the classification into races are predominantly physical aspects of appearance that are generally hereditary. Genetically a race may be defined as a group with gene frequencies differing from those of the other groups in the human species (see heredity; genetics; gene), but the genes responsible for the hereditary differences between the traditional races are extremely few when compared with the vast number of genes common to all human beings regardless of the race to which they belong. Many physical anthropologists now believe that, because there is as much genetic variation among the members of any given race as there is between the groups identified as different races, the concept of race is unscientific and unsound and racial categories are arbitrary designations. The term race is inappropriate when applied to national, religious, geographic, linguistic, or ethnic groups, nor can the physical appearances associated with race be equated with mental characteristics, such as intelligence, personality, or character.

All human groups belong to the same species (Homo sapiens) and are mutually fertile. Races arose as a result of mutation, selection, and adaptational changes in human populations. The nature of genetic variation in human beings indicates there has been a common evolution for all races and that racial differentiation occurred relatively late in the history of Homo sapiens. Theories postulating the very early emergence of racial differentiation have been advanced (e.g., C. S. Coon, The Origin of Races, 1962), but they are now scientifically discredited.

Race Classification and Racism

Bibliography

See S. J. Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (1981); I. F. Haney Lopez, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (1996); C. W. Mills, The Racial Contract (1997); A. Montagu, Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race (6th ed. 1998); M. F. Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (1998); G. M. Frederickson, Racism: A Short History (2002); P. Gilroy, Against Race Imagining Political Culture beyond the Color Line (2002); A. Fuentes, Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths about Human Nature (2012); H. Winant and M. Omi, Racial Formation in the United States (3rd ed. 2014); M. Yudell, Race Unmasked: Biology and Race in the 20th Century (2014); G. Yancy, On Race: 34 Conversations in a Time of Crisis (2017); J. L. Graves Jr. and A. H. Goodman, Racism, Not Race: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (2021); S. Hall, Selected Writings on Race and Difference (2021); E. Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America (6th ed. 2021).

Negroid