How Real Is Race? : Unraveling Race, Biology, and Culture

Anthropologists have long argued that the old 19th-century racial paradigm of four or five races (i.e., Black, White, Asian, Malay, and Native American) is not scientifically valid. In a biological sense, there are no such things as races. Contemporary humans are, and have always been, one species, with roots in Africa. There are no subspecies of humans. Yet this idea seems to contradict the experiences of many people in the United States and other countries where racial classification is used daily, by individuals and institutions. Race still matters, whether in wealth accumulation, educational achievement, health, the legal system, or in personal safety. How can race not be real when we experience its effects every day?

Mukhopadhyay, Moses, and Henze systematically deconstruct the myth of race as biology and address the reality of race as a cultural invention, drawing on both biocultural and cross-cultural perspectives. In so doing, they shed light on the intricate, dynamic interplay among race, culture, and biology. Part I, “The Fallacy of Race as Biology,” unravels, chapter by chapter, the myth that races are biologically valid divisions of humanity. Part II, “Culture Creates Race,” explores in detail the concept of race as a social construction. Part III, “Racial and Hot-Button Issues,” takes everyday realities and uses them as a starting point for uncovering the way racial ideologies work in these settings.