Race is the division of people by physical characteristics and is best understood as a social construct rather than an innate genetic or biological difference. Thanks to the recent work of the human genome project, we now know that there is greater genetic variance within what have been considered to be races than there is between races. Accordingly, the labels “Caucasian,” “Black,” and “Asian” convey meaning based on irrelevant characteristics such as a particular physical trait or the perceived presence or absence of such qualities as industriousness, reliability, cleanliness, and similar characteristics rather than the scientific truths that these characteristics were once thought to represent.
Though race-based distinctions may not be valid scientifically, societal labels based on race continue to help us as individuals living in a society to understand one another through social networks resulting from our various categorizations. Nevertheless, these distinctions are based on...
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Przybysz, A.M. (2012). Race. In: Loue, S., Sajatovic, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Immigrant Health. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5659-0_632
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