Reading about “race” this week was very interesting to me. As someone who is white, I’ve never really thought too hard about “race” and what it means for different people. I found it interesting to learn about the various ways people have tried to classify it in the past, as well as the reasons why those approaches are flawed, such as due to the nature of human variability.

In my readings of the AAPA’s and AAA’s statements on race, what stood out to me the most was the emphasis on race as being a very socially built concept and the fact that most of it was built upon as a way to excuse colonial attitudes towards slavery. I also found the emphasis on the fact that race hasn’t been scientifically proven to be really interesting!

I think that the best way to explain the non-existence of race to somebody who is unfamiliar with the topic would probably be to start off by asking them how they specifically define race and why they define it in such a way. Then, to delve into how it’s hard to categorize race based off of the infinite combinations of traits as well as basing it off of population boundaries. I feel like asking someone how they define it and why they think that way before explaining it to them helps to put it into perspective.