Race as a Social Construct

Leanne Chambers
Michigan State University

The concept of race developed as a way to explain human variability during the Age of
Discovery. This was a period of European travel around the globe which resulted in the meeting of
people who looked much different than the fair skin Europeans. Soon these different groups of people
were classified into different races by Linnaeus. He divided mankind into five different groups: Homo
sapiens americanuscharacteristics of this group included red skin, ill-tempered, and subjugated
Homo sapiens europaeuscharacterized by their white skin, seriousness, and strengthHomo sapiens
asiaticusthought to be yellow, meloncholy, and greedyHomo sapiens africanuscategorized by
their black skin, impassiveness, and lazinessand finally Homo sapiens monstrosusthese were the
people that did not fit into any other group. The concept of race farther evolved by Herbert Spencer and
his theory of social darwinism. According to Spencer, social darwinism explained why Europeans were
the most advancedthereby running the worldand why the rest of the races lagged so far behind.
To Spencer, it was all about survival of the fittest. During this time a dangerous new thought soon
gained traction in European society: eugenics. Eugenics is the, social philosophy promoting selective
encouragement and discouragement of reproduction based on class, intelligence, and race (Bengston).
Sadly, this philosophy still has followers even in modern times (Kendell).
However, we now know that there is no such thing as biological race; therefore, not one race
has an innate intellectual ability over another. Rather, differences in test and IQ scores are the result of
many factors during the upbringing of that childsuch as access to a good school districtbut not the
color of their skin (Gladwell). The dangers surrounding biological races go beyond eugenics, biological
races also oversimplifies the diversity of mankind. John Marks gives an example of this
oversimplification, Africa, for example, is home to tall thin people in Kenya (Nilotic), short people in
Zaire (Pygmies), and peoples in Southern Africa who are sufficiently different from our physical
stereotypes of Africans. . . (Science and Race). Marks goes on to say that, Dividing human
populations into a small number of discrete groups results in associations of populations and divisions

between them that are arbitrary, not natural (Science and Race). Even though we know that
biological races do not existand that it is indeed dangerous to believe that they do existforensic
anthropologists must still navigate this tricky subject in order to do their jobs.
Forensic anthropologists often work with the police in order to identify human remains in
various stages of decay. However, in order to give the police a description of what the victim looked
like while they were alive, forensic anthropologists must include the race of the deceased in their
description. Yet most anthropologists agree that biological races of humans do not exist, so how should
forensic anthropologists address this obstacle? (Saur)
The term race carries a lot of baggage. It has been used to justify slavery and genocide,
oppression and neglect. Besides this, often times the individual does not get to decide what social race
they want to belong to, rather, society decides that for themfor example, the Lumbee Tribe (Kendell).
When forensic anthropologists label a body a certain race, they are once again taking away the
individual's decision in the mattereven though the individual is deceased. Instead of this, in order to
identify the body, the forensic anthropologist should identify the individual's ancestry, as Norman Sauer
has suggested. This will eliminate the baggage that the term race carries as well as leaving the
individual the power to label oneself.

Work Cited
Bengston, Jennifer. "Race: A Social Reality." Michigan State University. East
Lansing. . Web. 9 July

2014.

Gladwell, Malcolm. "None of the Above." Biological Anthropology: An Introductory

Reader, Park (6th edition), 2010. Web. 9 July 2014.
Kendell, Ashley. "Race: A Social Reality." Michigan State University. East Lansing.
July 2014. Web. 9

July 2014.

Marks, Jonathan. "Science and Race." Biological Anthropology: An Introductory

Reader, Park (6th

edition), 2010. Web. 9 July 2014.

Sauer, Norman J. "Forensic Anthropology and the Concept of Race: If Races Don't
Exist, Why are

Forensic Anthropologists So Good at Identifying Them?" N.p.,

1992. Web. 9 July 2014.