race is a category of species of living beings, used by biology as a form of classification. In social terms, the use of the term race is used as common sense to determine ethnic groups from their genetic characteristics.
The "human races" would be determined by skin color and physical characteristics, associated with the social origin of individuals, but which has fallen into disuse by the scientific community.
Genetic studies have already proven that there are no subgroups of humans, and it is wrong to classify black, Asian, indigenous or other groups as different races. The anthropological and sociological approach to the issue establishes that the different groups among humans are ethnic groups, and present phenotypic differences, such as skin color.
See also the meaning of ethnicity.
While the social notion of race fell into disuse, a synonym most suitable of the word would be color. For example, instead of using "the black race suffers prejudice in Brazil", it uses "people of black color suffer prejudice in Brazil".
The concept of biological race is better applied to animals, like cats and dogs. The dog, for example, is a subspecies of wolves, and breeds are the later categories. Some of the most popular dog breeds are Pug, Beagle, Akita, Golden Retriever and Maltese. All have differences in appearance between them, some with long fur, others short, blue eyes or black, small or large, among a multitude of genetic characteristics that make up each race canine.
The word race comes from Latin ratio, which means category. To divide something into races is to categorize. From a scientific point of view, race is a subgroup of species. Thus, we have the following degrees of classification of living beings, with the example of humans:
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Chordata
- Subphylum: Vertebrate
- Class: Mammalia
- Order: Primates
- Family: Hominid
- Gender: Homo
- Species: Homo sapiens
And there are no genetic subgroups of the Homo sapiens species.
Within the biological notion, in relation to dogs, cats and other beings, race is synonymous with the terms category or type.
The word race is also used to designate something that is done with determination, very associated with football. "The striker of that team plays with race", the word here is associated with firmness, with playing his role with determination and dedication. In this sense, race can be synonymous with firmness, courage, grit and strength.
The expression "Raça Rubro Negra" refers to the fans of Flamengo, a soccer team from Rio de Janeiro.
race and ethnicity
Race and ethnicity are not synonymous. Common sense suggests that race is associated with the biological fact and ethnicity with the cultural, although we often also see cultural expressions being referred to as a "race". But the fact is that ethnic groups are individuals who share the same culture and even characteristics physics, while race is a biological concept applied to subgroups of a species, and the human species does not have subgroups.
Ethnic group is a group that may or may not be delimited to a certain territory, and share the same culture. Within the African continent, for example, there are several ethnic groups, such as the Zulu and the Xhosa, most of them inhabitants of the territory where South Africa is located.
Find out more about the meaning and differences between race and ethnicity.
Human race
The idea of different human races is a social construction not scientifically endorsed, and it reinforces prejudice and racism.
Racism can be defined as the perpetuation of the idea that we are different races and that one race is superior to the other.
Learn more about the meaning of racism.
The notion of different human races was used as a scientific approach until the second half of the 20th century, and was the object of study in biology and physical anthropology.
But with World War II, and the threat of Nazism as a defense of the superiority of the Aryan race, the scientific community awakened to other aspects of the investigation.
Learn more about Nazism it's the Arianism.
Cultural Anthropology had for some decades discarded the idea of multiple human races, and especially the notion of the superiority of the white race. For sociology, the existence of more than one race reinforced the argument for European supremacy in the face of the imperialist scenario of the period.