05 October 2022

We tend to randomly…

talk about race and ethnicity, trying to put human beings into boxes so that we can better understand them. 

As we know it, race refers to the concept of dividing people into groups on the basis of various sets of physical characteristics. Ethnicity, on the other hand, describes the culture of people in a given geographic region including their language, heritage, religion, and customs. 

In recent years, both of these definitions have been disproved. There is nothing in the genomes of individuals that could be used to separate them along clear racial lines i.e., variations in human experience do not equate to genetic difference. 

Thus, while both are portrayed as ways to understand human diversity, in reality they also wield power as agents of division. The unassailable fact, however, is that these two don’t reflect any scientific truths…