The race has become a source of stigma and discrimination over the centuries. Charles Darwin’s publication “The Origin of Species”, is one of many books that categorized race from inferior to superior. This theory further made things worse for other races and put white people on top without any authentic scientific research. Labeling people with darker skins as primitive and savages created a clear line between each race (Rose, 2009).
However; the question is that is race even real? Interestingly, from a biological standpoint race is a fictional idea as in biology. The color of a human being’s skin does not have any correlation with the biology of the said human. Unfortunately, racialized science seeks to prove that race has an impact on the intelligence, health, wealth, and education of the person. This has not been proved as different people can have different social and financial standing regardless of race (Smedley & Smedley, 2005).
It can be easily established that race has no scientific standing apart from being an evolutionary trait. So why is it such a prominent part of our society? The answer lies in the question which is that it is a societal construct. Human beings tend to put labels on everything in an attempt to understand it. Anything different is either dangerous or inferior.
This is the same for other animals as well, as human beings have established themselves as beings of higher intelligence as opposed to other animals. We are pleasantly surprised when we come across intelligent animals, like killer whales, parrots, belugas, etc. It is seen as an anomaly.
The competitive nature of humans drives them to be always on top and racial division is one of that attempts. Scientifically race does not exist however socially it does, unfortunately, societies tend to be more biased towards their own beliefs and have many times outwardly defied scientific facts. So as long as societies believe that different races exist; the answer will be “Yes, the race is real.”
References
Rose, S. (2009). Darwin, race and gender. EMBO Reports, 10(4), 297–298. https://doi.org/10.1038/embor.2009.40
Smedley, A., & Smedley, B. D. (2005). Race as biology is fiction, racism as a social problem is real: Anthropological and historical perspectives on the social construction of race. – PsycNET [Journal Website]. APA PsycNet. https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0003-066X.60.1.16
