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- National origin or nationality: This refers to where a person was born. Regardless of their personal characteristics, which can vary significantly, you must not discriminate based on where they came from. Ethnicity: This refers to cultural characteristics and what makes someone part of another group.
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Mar 25, 2021 · There are actually three main categories to consider: Race, ethnicity and national origin. While they may seem similar, they are fairly different, and you must know what that means. Here’s a simple breakdown: National origin or nationality: This refers to where a person was born.
How they differ and overlap. What to Know. Today, race refers to a group sharing some outward physical characteristics and some commonalities of culture and history. Ethnicity refers to markers acquired from the group with which one shares cultural, traditional, and familial bonds.
- Overview
- Genetics and race
- Categorizing race
- The politics of race
Race and ethnicity don't show up at the genetic level, but the concept of race still forms the human experience.
The four letters of the genetic code —A, C, G, and T—are projected onto Ryan Lingarmillar, a Ugandan. DNA reveals what skin color obscures: Race is a construct.
Race and ethnicity are two concepts related to human ancestry. Race is defined as “a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits.” The term ethnicities is more broadly defined as “large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background.”
“Race” is usually associated with biology and linked with physical characteristics such as skin color or hair texture. “Ethnicity” is linked with cultural expression and identification. However, both are social constructs used to categorize and characterize seemingly distinct populations.
Neither race nor ethnicity is detectable in the human genome. Humans do have genetic variations, some of which were once associated with ancestry from different parts of the world. But those variations cannot be tracked to distinct biological categories. Genetic tests cannot be used to verify or determine race or ethnicity, though the tests themselves are associated with an increased belief in racial differences.
Though race has no genetic basis, the social concept of race still shapes human experiences. Racial bias fuels social exclusion, discrimination and violence against people from certain social groups. In turn, racial prejudice confers social privilege to some and social and physical disparities to others, and is widely expressed in hierarchies that privilege people with white skin over people with darker skin colors.
Race and ethnicity are often regarded as the same, but the social and biological sciences consider the concepts distinct. In general, people can adopt or deny ethnic affiliations more readily than racial ones, though different ethnicities have been folded into racial categories during different periods of history.
As legal scholar Tanya K. Hernandez writes, “The social experience of being consistently viewed as distinct is what informs a racial identity, not a shared culture.” People who share an ethnicity may speak the same language, come from the same country, or share a religion or other cultural belief or expression.
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These Twins Show That Race Is A Social Construct
The United States government recognizes distinctions between the concept of race and ethnicity, and sorts individuals as White, Black or African American, Asian, American Indian and Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, or “other.” It also recognizes two ethnicities: Hispanic or Latino and Not Hispanic or Latino. This demographic data in turn affects public policy and civil rights law.
Humans share over 99 percent of their genetic material with one another, and variation occurs more between individuals than ethnic groups. Nevertheless, the legacies of racial and ethnic constructs can be spotted in everything from housing to health. Racial and ethnic prejudices affect the distribution of wealth, power, and opportunity, and create enduring social stratifications.
Historical examples of attempts to place people in racial categories further underscore the social constructionism of race. In the South during the time of slavery, the skin tone of slaves lightened over the years as babies were born from the union, often in the form of rape, of slave owners and other whites with slaves.
Ethnicity, or the sense of belonging to a community based on a common history, language, religion, and other cultural characteristics, is a central concept that has been used to understand an important basis of identity in most societies around the world and throughout human history.
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include a common nation of origin, or common sets of ancestry, traditions, language, history, society, religion, or social treatment.
[Encyclopedia Britannica] The term “race,” used infrequently before the 1500s, was used to identify groups of people with a kinship or group connection. The modern-day use of the term “race” (identifying groups of people by physical traits, appearance, or characteristics) is a human invention.
