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Fallacy Of Race

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“Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.” - American philosopher Abraham J. Heschel. A world with no definition of race is a hard concept for many to grasp. Yet many years ago the world existed as so, long before the creation of race. Race is not natural, despite common assumptions, it is a social construct created by humans to categorize the world. Its concept was first used in colonial America during the peak of the slave trade industry. In the latter part of the 17th century the demand for labor grew enormously. It had become clear that neither Irishmen nor Indians made good slaves. More than that, the real threats to social order were the poor freed whites who demanded lands and privileges …show more content…

If one thinks that these patterns of racial differences have a biological basis, if we see them as “natural,” racial inequality becomes just part of the human experience. This fallacy influences people to see racism and inequality not as the products of economic, social, and political histories but more as a natural state of affairs. What justifies the continued use of racial classification? Nothing. I argue that there are no races, only racialized groups; groups that have been misunderstood as biological races. People may object “surely, I can see race with my bare eyes!” However, it is not race we see, but the superficial visible biological diversity within our species; variation in traits such as skin color, hair form and eye shape. This variation is not enough to justify racial classification. Our biological diversity is too small, and too smoothly distributed across geographic space, for race to be real. When scientists apply the standard criteria to determine whether there are subspecies/races in humans, none are found. In chimpanzees yes, but in humans no. Racial classification is unscientific. However, humanities scholars have their own justifications for race-talk. Many argue that while there are no biological races, there are social races. Race, as philosophers put it, is a social kind. This is not completely inaccurate, as race is a social construct, but the concept of race is still misunderstood and misused. The stigma around these social races needs to end and the illusion of race needs to be

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