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Race and society

Social interpretations of race regard the common categorizations of people into different races, often
with biologist tagging of particular "racial" attributes beyond mere anatomy, as more socially and
culturally determined than based upon biology. Some interpretations are often deconstructionist and
poststructuralist in that they critically analyze the historical construction and development of racial
categories.

Social interpretation of physical variation

Incongruities of racial classifications

The biological anthropologist Jonathan Marks (1995) argued that even as the idea of "race" was
becoming a powerful organizing principle in many societies, the shortcomings of the concept were
apparent. In the Old World, the gradual transition in appearances from one racial group to adjacent
racial groups emphasized that "one variety of mankind does so sensibly pass into the other, that you
cannot mark out the limits between them," as Blumenbach observed in his writings on human
variation.[1] In parts of the Americas, the situation was somewhat different. The immigrants to the
New World came largely from widely separated regions of the Old World—western and northern Europe,
western Africa, and, later, eastern Asia and southern and eastern Europe. In the Americas, the
immigrant populations began to mix among themselves and with the indigenous inhabitants of the
continent. In the United States, for example, most people who self-identify as African American have
some European ancestors—in one analysis of genetic markers that have differing frequencies between
continents, European ancestry ranged from an estimated 7% for a sample of Jamaicans to ∼23% for a
sample of African Americans from New Orleans.[2] In a survey of college students who self-identified
as white in a northeastern U.S. university, the west African and Native American genetic contribution
were 0.7% and 3.2%.[3]

In the United States, social and legal conventions developed over time that forced individuals of mixed
ancestry into simplified racial categories.[4] An example is the "one-drop rule" implemented in some
state laws that treated anyone with a single known African American ancestor as black.[5] The
decennial censuses conducted since 1790 in the United States also created an incentive to establish
racial categories and fit people into those categories.[6] In other countries in the Americas, where
mixing among groups was more extensive, social non racial categories have tended to be more numerous
and fluid, with people moving into or out of categories on the basis of a combination of socioeconomic
status, social class, ancestry.[7]

Efforts to sort the increasingly mixed population of the United States into discrete racial categories
generated many difficulties.[8] Additionally, efforts to track mixing between census racial groups led to
a proliferation of categories (such as mulatto and octoroon) and "blood quantum" distinctions that
became increasingly untethered from self-reported ancestry.[9] A person's racial identity can change
over time. One study found differences between self-ascribed race and Veterans Affairs administrative
data.[10]

Race as a social construct and populationism

The notion of a biological basis for race originally emerged through speculations surrounding the "blood
purity" of Jews during the Spanish Inquisition, eventually translating to a general association of one's
biology with their social and personal characteristics. In the 19th century, this recurring ideology was
intensified in the development of the racial sciences, eugenics and ethnology, which meant to further
categorize groups of humans in terms of biological superiority or inferiority.[11] While the field of racial
sciences, also known as scientific racism, has expired in history, these antiquated conceptions of race
have persisted throughout the 21st century. (See also: Historical origins of racial classification)

Contrary to popular belief that the division of the human species based on physical variations is
natural, there exists no clear, reliable distinctions that bind people to such groupings.[12] According to
the American Anthropological Association, "Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA)
indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional
geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes."[13] While there is
a biological basis for differences in human phenotypes, most notably in skin color,[14] the genetic
variability of humans is found not amongst, but rather within racial groups – meaning the perceived
level of dissimilarity amongst the species has virtually no biological basis. Genetic diversity has
characterized human survival, rendering the idea of a "pure" ancestry as obsolete.[11] Under this
interpretation, race is conceptualized through a lens of artificiality, rather than through the skeleton of
a scientific discovery. As a result, scholars have begun to broaden discourses of race by defining it as a
social construct and exploring the historical contexts that led to its inception and persistence in
contemporary society.[15]

Most historians, anthropologists,[16] and sociologists[17] describe human races as a social construct,
preferring instead the term population or ancestry, which can be given a clear operational definition.
Even those who reject the formal concept of race, however, still use the word race in day-to-day speech.
This may either be a matter of semantics, or an effect of an underlying cultural significance of race in
racist societies. Regardless of the name, a working concept of sub-species grouping can be useful,
because in the absence of cheap and widespread genetic tests, various race-linked gene mutations (see
Cystic fibrosis, Lactose intolerance, Tay–Sachs disease and Sickle cell anemia) are difficult to address
without recourse to a category between "individual" and "species". As genetic tests for such conditions
become cheaper, and as detailed haplotype maps and SNP databases become available, identifiers of race
should diminish. Also, increasing interracial marriage is reducing the predictive power of race. For
example, babies born with Tay–Sachs disease in North America are not only or primarily Ashkenazi
Jews, despite stereotypes to contrary; French Canadians, Louisiana Cajuns, and Irish-Americans also
see high rates of the disease.[18]

Michael Brooks, the author of “The Race Delusion” (https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/0


6/race-delusion) suggests that race is not determined biographically or genetically, but that it is
socially constructed. He explains that nearly all scientists in the field of race, nationality, and ethnicity
will confirm that race is a social construct. It has more to do with how people identify rather than
genetics. He then goes on to explain how “black” and “white” have different meanings in other cultures.
People in the United States tend to label themselves black if they have ancestors that are from Africa,
but when you are in Brazil, you are not black if you have European ancestry. DNA shows that the human
population is a result of populations that have moved across the world, splitting up and interbreeding.
Even with this science to back up this concept, society has yet to believe and accept it. No one is born
with the knowledge of race, the split between races and the decision to treat others differently based on
skin color is completely learned and accepted by society.

Experts in the fields of genetics, law, and sociology have offered their opinions on the subject. Audrey
Smedley and Brian D. Smedley of Virginia Commonwealth University Institute of Medicine[19] discuss
the anthropological and historical perspectives on ethnicity, culture, and race. They define culture as
the habits acquired by a society. Smedley states "Ethnicity and culture are related phenomena and bear
no intrinsic connection to human biological variations or race" (Smedley 17). The authors state using
physical characteristics to define an ethnic identity is inaccurate. The variation of humans has
actually decreased over time since, as the author states, "Immigration, intermating, intermarriage, and
reproduction have led to increasing physical heterogeneity of peoples in many areas of the world"
(Smedley 18). They referred to other experts and their research, pointing out that humans are 99% alike.
That one percent is caused by natural genetic variation, and has nothing to do with the ethnic group of
the subject. Racial classification in the United States started in the 1700s with three ethnically distinct
groups. These groups were the white Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans. The concept of race
was skewed around these times because of the social implications of belonging to one group or another.
The view that one race is biologically different from another rose out of society's grasp for power and
authority over other ethnic groups. This did not only happen in the United States but around the world as
well. Society created race to create hierarchies in which the majority would prosper most.

Another group of experts in sociology has written on this topic. Guang Guo, Yilan Fu, Yi Li, Kathleen
Mullan Harris of the University of North Carolina[20] department of sociology as well as Hedwig Lee
(University of Washington Seattle), Tianji Cai (University of Macau) comment on remarks made by one
expert. The debate is over DNA differences, or lack thereof, between different races. The research in the
original article they are referring to uses different methods of DNA testing between distinct ethnic
groups and compares them to other groups. Small differences were found, but those were not based on
race. They were from biological differences caused from the region in which the people live. They
describe that the small differences cannot be fully explained because the understanding of migration,
intermarriage, and ancestry is unreliable at the individual level. Race cannot be related to ancestry
based on the research on which they are commenting. They conclude that the idea of "races as
biologically distinct peoples with differential abilities and behaviors has long been discredited by the
scientific community" (2338).

One more expert in the field has given her opinion. Ann Morning of the New York University
Department of Sociology,[21] and member of the American Sociological Association, discusses the role of
biology in the social construction of race. She examines the relationship between genes and race and the
social construction of social race clusters. Morning states that everyone is assigned to a racial group
because of their physical characteristics. She identifies through her research the existence of DNA
population clusters. She states that society would want to characterize these clusters as races. Society
characterizes race as a set of physical characteristics. The clusters though have an overlap in physical
characteristics and thus cannot be counted as a race by society or by science. Morning concludes that
"Not only can constructivist theory accommodate or explain the occasional alignment of social
classifications and genetic estimates that Shiao et al.'s model hypothesizes, but empirical research on
human genetics is far from claiming—let alone demonstrating—that statistically inferred clusters are
the equivalent of races" (Morning 203). Only using ethnic groups to map a genome is entirely inaccurate,
instead every individual must be viewed as having their own wholly unique genome (unique in the 1%,
not the 99% all humans share).

Ian Haney López, the John H. Boalt Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley[22]
explains ways race is a social construct. He uses examples from history of how race was socially
constructed and interpreted. One such example was of the Hudgins v. Wright case. A slave woman sued
for her freedom and the freedom of her two children on the basis that her grandmother was Native
American. The race of the Wright had to be socially proven, and neither side could present enough
evidence. Since the slave owner Hudgins bore the burden of proof, Wright and her children gained their
freedom. López uses this example to show the power of race in society. Human fate, he argues, still
depends upon ancestry and appearance. Race is a powerful force in everyday life. These races are not
determined by biology though, they are created by society to keep power with the majority. He describes
that there are not any genetic characteristics that all blacks have that non-whites do not possess and
vice versa. He uses the example of Mexican. It truly is a nationality, yet it has become a catch-all for
all Hispanic nationalities. This simplification is wrong, López argues, for it is not only inaccurate but
it tends to treat all "Mexicans" as below fervent Americans. He describes that "More recently, genetic
testing has made it clear the close connections all humans share, as well as the futility of explaining
those differences that do exist in terms of racially relevant gene codes" (Lopez 199–200). Those
differences clearly have no basis in ethnicity, so race is completely socially constructed.

Some argue it is preferable when considering biological relations to think in terms of populations, and
when considering cultural relations to think in terms of ethnicity, rather than of race.

These developments had important consequences. For example, some scientists developed the notion of
"population" to take the place of race. It is argued that this substitution is not simply a matter of
exchanging one word for another.

This view does not deny that there are physical differences among peoples; it simply claims that the
historical conceptions of "race" are not particularly useful in accounting for these differences
scientifically. In particular, it is claimed that:

1. knowing someone's "race" does not provide comprehensive predictive information about biological
characteristics, and only absolutely predicts those traits that have been selected to define the
racial categories, e.g. knowing a person's skin color, which is generally acknowledged to be one of
the markers of race (or taken as a defining characteristic of race), does not allow good predictions
of a person's blood type to be made.

2. in general, the worldwide distribution of human phenotypes exhibits gradual trends of difference
across geographic zones, not the categorical differences of race; in particular, there are many
peoples (like the San of S. W. Africa, or the people of northern India) who have phenotypes that do
not neatly fit into the standard race categories.

3. focusing on race has historically led not only to seemingly insoluble disputes about classification
(e.g. are the Japanese a distinct race, a mixture of races, or part of the East Asian race? and what
about the Ainu?) but has also exposed disagreement about the criteria for making decisions—the
selection of phenotypic traits seemed arbitrary.

Neven Sesardic has argued that such arguments are unsupported by empirical evidence and politically
motivated. Arguing that races are not completely discrete biologically is a straw man argument. He
argues "racial recognition is not actually based on a single trait (like skin color) but rather on a number
of characteristics that are to a certain extent concordant and that jointly make the classification not
only possible but fairly reliable as well". Forensic anthropologists can classify a person's race with an
accuracy close to 100% using only skeletal remains if they take into consideration several
characteristics at the same time.[23] A.W.F. Edwards has argued similarly regarding genetic
differences in "Human genetic diversity: Lewontin's fallacy".

In an experiment (https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/07/08/88
8846330/we-are-repeating-discrimination-experiment-every-day-educator-says) conducted by Jane
Elliot, a school teacher from Riceville, Iowa, on her third-grade class regarding discrimination and
race, it is evident that race is socially constructed. She conducted an anti-racism experiment on her all-
white classroom, allowing them to experience what discrimination feels like. She split them into
groups of brown-eyed and blue-eyed students. She told them that people with brown eyes were superior to
those with blue eyes. Those with brown eyes were given special privileges and she told them that they
were better and more civilized than those with blue eyes. After conducting the test, she was horrified to
see that the students quickly started to internalize and accept the characteristics she had assigned to
them based on their eye color. Because of these ideas she put into the minds of these children, they
accepted it and believed that this was true even though there was no science behind it, it was simply
human manipulation.

Race in biomedicine

There is an active debate among biomedical researchers about the meaning and importance of race in
their research. The primary impetus for considering race in biomedical research is the possibility of
improving the prevention and treatment of diseases by predicting hard-to-ascertain factors on the basis
of more easily ascertained characteristics. The most well-known examples of genetically determined
disorders that vary in incidence between ethnic groups would be sickle cell disease and thalassemia
among black and Mediterranean populations respectively and Tay–Sachs disease among people of
Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Some fear that the use of racial labels in biomedical research runs the risk
of unintentionally exacerbating health disparities, so they suggest alternatives to the use of racial
taxonomies.

Case studies in the social construction of race

Race in the United States

In the United States since its early history, Native Americans, African-Americans and European-
Americans were classified as belonging to different races. For nearly three centuries, the criteria for
membership in these groups were similar, comprising a person's appearance, his fraction of known non-
White ancestry, and his social circle.[24] But the criteria for membership in these races diverged in the
late 19th century. During Reconstruction, increasing numbers of Americans began to consider anyone
with "one drop" of "Black blood" to be Black.[25] By the early 20th century, this notion of invisible
blackness was made statutory in many states and widely adopted nationwide.[26] In contrast,
Amerindians continue to be defined by a certain percentage of "Indian blood" (called blood quantum) due
in large part to American slavery ethics.

Race definitions in the United States

The concept of race as used by the Census Bureau reflects self-identification by people according to the
race or races with which they most closely identify. These categories are sociopolitical constructs and
should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature. They change from one census
to another, and the racial categories include both racial and national-origin groups.[27]

Race in Brazil

Compared to 19th-century United States, 20th-century Brazil was characterized by a relative absence of
sharply defined racial groups. This pattern reflects a different history and different social relations.
Basically, race in Brazil was recognized as the difference between ancestry (which determines genotype)
and phenotypic differences. Racial identity was not governed by a rigid descent rule. A Brazilian child
was never automatically identified with the racial type of one or both parents, nor were there only two
categories to choose from. Over a dozen racial categories are recognized in conformity with the
combinations of hair color, hair texture, eye color, and skin color. These types grade into each other like
the colors of the spectrum, and no one category stands significantly isolated from the rest. That is, race
referred to appearance, not heredity.
Through this system of racial identification, parents and children and even brothers and sisters were
frequently accepted as representatives of opposite racial types. In a fishing village in the state of Bahia,
an investigator showed 100 people pictures of three sisters and they were asked to identify the races of
each. In only six responses were the sisters identified by the same racial term. Fourteen responses used
a different term for each sister. In another experiment nine portraits were shown to a hundred people.
Forty different racial types were elicited. It was found, in addition, that a given Brazilian might be
called by as many as thirteen different terms by other members of the community. These terms are
spread out across practically the entire spectrum of theoretical racial types. A further consequence of
the absence of a descent rule was that Brazilians apparently not only disagreed about the racial identity
of specific individuals, but they also seemed to be in disagreement about the abstract meaning of the
racial terms as defined by words and phrases. For example, 40% of a sample ranked moreno claro as a
lighter type than mulato claro, while 60% reversed this order. A further note of confusion is that one
person might employ different racial terms to describe the same person over a short time span. The
choice of which racial description to use may vary according to both the personal relationships and
moods of the individuals involved. The Brazilian census lists one's race according to the preference of
the person being interviewed. As a consequence, hundreds of races appeared in the census results,
ranging from blue (which is blacker than the usual black) to pink (which is whiter than the usual
white).

However, Brazilians are not so naïve to ignore one's racial origins just because of his (or her) better
social status. An interesting example of this phenomenon has occurred recently, when the famous
football (soccer) player Ronaldo declared publicly that he considered himself as White, thus linking
racism to a form or another of class conflict. This caused a series of ironic notes on newspapers, which
pointed out that he should have been proud of his African origin (which is obviously noticeable), a fact
that must have made life for him (and for his ancestors) more difficult, so, being a successful
personality was, in spite of that, a victory for him. What occurs in Brazil that differentiates it largely
from the US or South Africa, for example, is that black or mixed-race people are, in fact, more accepted
in social circles if they have more education, or have a successful life (a euphemism for "having a better
salary"). As a consequence, inter-racial marriages are more common, and more accepted, among highly
educated Afro-Brazilians than lower-educated ones.

So, although the identification of a person by race is far more fluid and flexible in Brazil than in the
U.S., there still are racial stereotypes and prejudices. African features have been considered less
desirable; Blacks have been considered socially inferior, and Whites superior. These white supremacist
values were a legacy of European colonization and the slave-based plantation system. The complexity of
racial classifications in Brazil is reflective of the extent of miscegenation in Brazilian society, which
remains highly, but not strictly, stratified along color lines. Henceforth, Brazil's desired image as a
perfect "post-racist" country, composed of the "cosmic race" celebrated in 1925 by José Vasconcelos, must
be met with caution, as sociologist Gilberto Freyre demonstrated in 1933 in Casa Grande e Senzala.

Race in politics and ethics

Michel Foucault argued the popular historical and political use of a non-essentialist notion of "race"
used in the "race struggle" discourse during the 1688 Glorious Revolution and under Louis XIV's end of
reign. In Foucault's view, this discourse developed in two different directions: Marxism, which seized
the notion and transformed it into "class struggle" discourse, and racists, biologists and eugenicists, who
paved the way for 20th century "state racism".

During the Enlightenment, racial classifications were used to justify enslavement of those deemed to be
of "inferior", non-White races, and thus supposedly best fitted for lives of toil under White supervision.
These classifications made the distance between races seem nearly as broad as that between species,
easing unsettling questions about the appropriateness of such treatment of humans. The practice was at
the time generally accepted by both scientific and lay communities.

Arthur Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853–1855) was one of the
milestones in the new racist discourse, along with Vacher de Lapouge's "anthroposociology" and Johann
Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), who applied race to nationalist theory to develop militant ethnic
nationalism. They posited the historical existence of national races such as German and French,
branching from basal races supposed to have existed for millennia, such as the Aryan race, and believed
political boundaries should mirror these supposed racial ones.

Later, one of Hitler's favorite sayings was, "Politics is applied biology". Hitler's ideas of racial purity led
to unprecedented atrocities in Europe. Since then, ethnic cleansing has occurred in Cambodia, the
Balkans, Sudan, and Rwanda. In one sense, ethnic cleansing is another name for the tribal warfare and
mass murder that has afflicted human society for ages.

Racial inequality has been a concern of United States politicians and legislators since the country's
founding. In the 19th century most White Americans (including abolitionists) explained racial
inequality as an inevitable consequence of biological differences. Since the mid-20th century, political
and civic leaders as well as scientists have debated to what extent racial inequality is cultural in
origin. Some argue that current inequalities between Blacks and Whites are primarily cultural and
historical, the result of past and present racism, slavery and segregation, and could be redressed through
such programs as affirmative action and Head Start. Others work to reduce tax funding of remedial
programs for minorities. They have based their advocacy on aptitude test data that, according to them,
shows that racial ability differences are biological in origin and cannot be leveled even by intensive
educational efforts. In electoral politics, many more ethnic minorities have won important offices in
Western nations than in earlier times, although the highest offices tend to remain in the hands of
Whites.

In his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. observed:

History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges
voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as
Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.[28]

King's hope, expressed in his I Have a Dream speech, was that the civil rights struggle would one day
produce a society where people were not "judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their
character".

Because of the identification of the concept of race with political oppression, many natural and social
scientists today are wary of using the word "race" to refer to human variation, but instead use less
emotive words such as "population" and "ethnicity". Some, however, argue that the concept of race,
whatever the term used, is nevertheless of continuing utility and validity in scientific research.[29]

Race in law enforcement

In an attempt to provide general descriptions that may facilitate the job of law enforcement officers
seeking to apprehend suspects, the United States FBI employs the term "race" to summarize the general
appearance (skin color, hair texture, eye shape, and other such easily noticed characteristics) of
individuals whom they are attempting to apprehend. From the perspective of law enforcement officers,
a description needs to capture the features that stand out most clearly in the perception within the given
society.

Thus, in the UK, Scotland Yard use a classification based on the ethnic composition of British society:
W1 (White British), W2 (White Irish), W9 (Other White); M1 (White and black Caribbean), M2 (White
and black African), M3 (White and Asian), M9 (Any other mixed background); A1 (Asian-Indian), A2
(Asian-Pakistani), A3 (Asian-Bangladeshi), A9 (Any other Asian background); B1 (Black Caribbean),
B2 (Black African), B3 (Any other black background); O1 (Chinese), O9 (Any other).

In the United States, the practice of racial profiling has been ruled to be both unconstitutional and also
to constitute a violation of civil rights. There also an ongoing debate on the relationship between race
and crime regarding the disproportional representation of certain minorities in all stages of the
criminal justice system.
There are many studies that have proved the reality of racial profiling. A huge study (https://www.natur
e.com/articles/s41562-020-0858-1) published in May 2020 of 95 million traffic stops between 2011 and
2018 shows that it was more common for black people to be pulled over and searched after a stop than
whites even though white people were more likely to be found with illicit drugs. Another study (https://
www.texascjc.org/system/files/publications/Ending%20the%20War%20on%20Drugs%20in%20Travis%
20County.pdf) found that in Travis County, Texas, despite black people comprising only around 9
percent of the population, they made up about 30 percent of police arrests for possessing less than a gram
of illicit drugs, even though surveys consistently show that black and white people use illicit drugs at
the same rate. Despite statistics and data that show that black people do not actually possess drugs
more than white people, they are still targeted more by the police than white people which is largely due
to the social construction of race.

Studies in racial taxonomy based on DNA cluster analysis has led law enforcement to pursue suspects
based on their racial classification as derived from their DNA evidence left at the crime scene.[30] DNA
analysis has been successful in helping police determine the race of both victims and perpetrators.[31]
This classification is called "biogeographical ancestry".[32]

See also

Acculturation

Colonial mentality

Colonialism

Colorism

Creolization

Cultural assimilation

Cultural cringe

Cultural identity

Enculturation

Ethnocide

Globalization

Intercultural competence

Language shift
Paper Bag Party

Passing (racial identity)

Race of the future

Racialism

Racialization

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Syncretism

Westernization

Footnotes

1. J. Marks, Human Biodiversity: Genes, Race, and History (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1995), 54.

2. Parra, Esteban J. (1998). "Estimating African American Admixture Proportions by Use of


Population-Specific Alleles" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1377655) .
American Journal of Human Genetics. 63 (6): 1839–51. doi:10.1086/302148 (https://doi.org/10.108
6%2F302148) . PMC 1377655 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1377655) .
PMID 9837836 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9837836) .

3. Shriver, Mark D. (2003). "Skin Pigmentation, Biogeographical Ancestry, and Admixture


Mapping". Human Genetics. 112 (4): 387–99. doi:10.1007/s00439-002-0896-y (https://doi.org/10.100
7%2Fs00439-002-0896-y) . PMID 12579416 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12579416) .
S2CID 7877572 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:7877572) .

4. Thomas F. Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America, New ed. (New York: Oxford
University, 1997).

5. F. James Davis, Who is Black?: One Nation's Definition (University Park PA: State University of
Pennsylvania, 1991).

6. M. Nobles, Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics (Stanford: Stanford
University, 2000).

7. Magnus Mörner, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (Boston: Little Brown, 1967).

8. P.R. Spickard, "The illogic of American racial categories," in M.P.P. Root, ed., Racially mixed
people in America (Newbury Park CA: Sage, 1992), 12–23.
9. Powell, Brenna; Hochschild, Jennifer L. (2008). "Racial Reorganization and the United States
Census 1850–1930: Mulattoes, Half-Breeds, Mixed Parentage, Hindoos, and the Mexican Race" (htt
ps://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/3153295) . Studies in American Political Development. 22: 59–
96. doi:10.1017/S0898588X08000047 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS0898588X08000047) .
ISSN 0898-588X (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0898-588X) . S2CID 146658895 (https://api.se
manticscholar.org/CorpusID:146658895) .

10. Kressin, N.R.; et al. (Oct 2003). "Agreement between administrative data and patients' self-
reports of race/ethnicity" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448042) .
American Journal of Public Health. 93 (10): 1734–9. doi:10.2105/ajph.93.10.1734 (https://doi.org/1
0.2105%2Fajph.93.10.1734) . PMC 1448042 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC14
48042) . PMID 14534230 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14534230) .

11. Gallagher, Charles A. (2011). "Defining Race and Ethnicity". Rethinking the Color Line: Readings
in Race and Ethnicity. McGraw-Hill Education. ISBN 978-0078026638. ""In the nineteenth
century, race and racial differences were the preeminent concerns of the racial sciences, eugenics
and ethnology, better known today as scientific racism."

12. Gannon,LiveScience, Megan. "Race Is a Social Construct, Scientists Argue" (https://www.scientif


icamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-construct-scientists-argue/) . Scientific American.
Retrieved 2018-10-03.

13. Smedley, Audrey (May 17, 1998). "AAA Statement on Race" (http://www.americananthro.org/Conn
ectWithAAA/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=2583.) . American Anthropological Association.
Retrieved October 8, 2016.

14. Harris, Marvin (1989). Our Kind: Who We Are, Where We Came From, Where We Are Going. New
York: Harper & Row. pp. 112–114 – via
http://homepage.smc.edu/delpiccolo_guido/Soc34/Soc34readings/HOW%20OUR%20SKINS%20GO
T%20THEIR%20COLOR.pdf . {{cite book}}: External link in |via= (help)

15. Omi, Michael; Winant, Howard (1986). "Racial Formations". Racial Formation in the United
States. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415520317.

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