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Title: (How Much) Do the Semantics of Race Matter? A Note From a Parochial Perspective

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2012

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Abstract: One part of the on-going debate over the reality of human races centers on the applicability of the concept, RACE, to extant human populations. If, one line of reasoning goes, the very meaning of the term race entails that the concept refers to biologically real entities, then, since the human populations identified as races do not comprise biologically real entities, there simple are no races and race, as a concept, fails to refer to anything at all in the world. I argue that this line of reasoning relies on an ambiguity in our understanding of what it is for an entity to be biologically real. Biology cannot provide meaningful support of, nor a justification for, our beliefs and practices surrounding race, but races may nevertheless be (loosely) individuated on the basis of (real) biological features. If that is the case, it is plausible that dismantling the conceptual framework around race requires not the recognition that there are no entities to which the concept refers, but rather the recognition that those entities are contingent, contestable but nonetheless very powerful ways of categorizing people, and that since these ways of categorizing people do real harm (and no real good), we should work to ensure that they are no longer employed in ways that do harm, and work to (try to) repair (some of) the harms done.

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Authors: Kaplan, Jonathan

Publisher: Oregon State University

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Race and Ethnicity

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