‘Race’ - What it is, What it’s not and Why it Matters

One. I want to start by thinking about the concept of ‘race’ – the idea that there is
something significant about human beings which we can describe with the terms ‘race’ or
‘racial’ or with various kinds of racial label etc. And, in particular, I want to take a bit of time
to explain why it is that most contemporary sociologists (and, indeed, most evolutionary
biologists or geneticists) do not believe that the term ‘race’, as it is commonly used, is
something which helpfully describes the nature of human differences.

When the terms ‘race’ or ‘racial’ is used in the media or in everyday conversation, or when
racial labels are used to indicate a particular group of people - that language evokes and
helps to sustain series of implicit claims about human beings.

So what are these ideas? Well, firstly and most obviously, the idea that there are
fundamentally different categories of human being – that each of us fits into a particular
racial group and that those groups are self-contained and homogenous. Hence ‘the
Hispanics’ are one, singular group, or ‘the Jews’ or ‘the Muslims’ and so on.

You do hear, of course, people being described as being of ‘mixed race’, but that terms itself
reinforces – it relies on – the assumption that ‘races’ are, originally or in their pure form,
separate and discontinuous phenomena. Each ‘race’ is a specific, single grouping.

Secondly, of course, this idea relies on a further idea which is that we can tell which of these
fundamental categories a person belongs to from their appearance: there are taken to be
specific facts about how a person looks – usually something about their skin colour or the
kind of hair they have or their body shape – which acts as a reliable guide to their ‘race’.

And, thirdly, that our membership of these groups has significant consequences for who we
are in some way. Any reference to ‘race’ or any statement which designates people
according to a racial category, makes evident, in practice, the assumption that ‘race’ tells us
something about a person or a group of people that is more important than, say, their shoe
size or the quality of their fingernails or any of the other visible (or invisible) physical
differences by which we could categorise people if we wanted to.

Now, it is true, of course, that all of us use judgements about the appearance of other
people, on a more or less daily basis, as a guide to where those people might come from
and those judgements have a rough reliability although the likelihood of their being wrong
increases all the time as people migrate and resettle around the world in growing numbers.

Actually, when you stop and think about it, that fact – the fact that you might assume, from
how someone looks, that they come from China but it turns out that they actually come
from Coatbridge – ought to help us realize that these everyday racial designations are only
made possible by historical circumstances. They provide us with absolutely no evidence in
support of the idea that ‘racial’ differences ‘really’ exist.
Nevertheless, part of the reason why ideas about racial difference remain stubbornly
resilient, part of the reason why they are so persistent, is because there are visible
variations between individual human beings. It is all too easy to jump from that fact, to the
assumption that humankind is made up of a limited number of biologically ring-fenced types
of people, and you can tell which ‘type’ of person someone is from their appearance.

Two. Why are those ideas wrong? Firstly and most importantly, because human beings form
a single species. There are all kinds of variations in the physical characteristics of the
members of that species, but there are no examples of absolutely genetically isolated
human populations: we share a single gene pool as human beings.1 In fact the majority of
genetic variation exists within local populations: 85-90% of genetic variation, for example,
occurs between the individuals who live within a single continent, for example, and only 10-
15% between those populations and others. 2 The overwhelming majority of genetic
variation occurs within supposedly ‘racial’ groups such as ‘African’ or ‘Asian’, rather than
between those groups and others.

Secondly, these variations in human physical make up are not settled or fixed. They are the
result of complex, long-term interactions between our genetic make-up and our
environment, and they can alter in unpredictable ways as a result of further genetic or
environmental change. Given all of this, the idea that any one form of genetically inherited
difference can be taken as a guide to an eternal or essential divide between groups of
humans is clearly mistaken.

Thirdly, it is perfectly possible, if you want to do this, as an exercise in categorisation, to

break the human species down into groups on the basis of a particular characteristic that
you choose. Historically, as we know, the idea of ‘race’ involved the assumption that skin
colour was the characteristic which mattered. But there is no necessary reason why skin
colour should be considered any more revealing or important about human being than any
other possible means of defining categories.

But whichever characteristic we might choose to identify a group of humans, we would

always find that individuals within that population varied from each other in all kinds of
ways, so that they could, potentially, be divided into any number of alternative groupings. If,
for example, we arranged the human population according to whether or not individuals
produce the milk digesting enzyme lactase, we would find that most (but not all) Europeans,
Fulani and Arabs would fit into one category, and most (but not all) Japanese and
indigenous American communities would be in another 3. Each of us would fit into one
‘genetic’ group on the basis of one criterion and into alternative groups if we changed the
criteria.

1
See, for example, Alland Jr. Alexander (2002) Race in Mind: Race, IQ and Other Racisms, New York: Palgrave
Macmillan (chapter 3).
2
See, Jorde, Lynn B and Wooding, Stephen P (2004) ‘Genetic Variation, Classification and ‘Race’’, Nature
Genetics Supplement, 36 (11): S28-33 and Graves, Joseph L. (2004) The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race
Exists in America, Plume Books: New York.
3
See Diamond, Jared (1994) ‘Race Without Colour’, Discover, 15 (11): 82-90.
Fourthly, and as if all of that were not enough, these populations would have hopelessly
fuzzy edges. Most genetic variation occurs on a continuum rather than in an ‘either/or’
fashion.4 Imagine an attempt to categorise the population of the street where you live into
different ‘races’ on the basis of each person's eye colour. You would find it a profoundly
difficult job, and in the end you would have no choice but to fall back on largely subjective
decisions about where the dividing lines should be placed. Where does blue end and green
begin, or green become brown? There is no straightforwardly 'blue eyed race' or 'green
eyed race'; there is, rather, a spectrum of eye colours which vary by infinitesimal degrees
with no natural or self-evident division between the groups.

Finally: variations in genetic traits are not tied to each other. Geneticists say: they are not
'concordant'. In other words: not all individuals who have a certain blood group have the
same skin colour; not all individuals who possess a certain pattern of fingerprint share the
same type of hair. So, the idea that you can speculate on the basis of one kind of
characteristic about the likely presence or absence of another characteristic is completely
misleading. Of course, the idea of ‘race’ relies on the implication that you can do this, that
certain observable traits make it possible to predict other facts about the individuals who
display those traits.

Historically – and often contemporarily – that has meant the assumption that skin colour
tells you something about a person’s intelligence or their capacity for physical labour or sex
or criminal behaviour. But it also sometimes takes the form of ‘positive’ racial claims: that
Indians are inherently hard-working or Chinese people are predisposed to be good at maths,
for example.

But genetic variation does not work like that. Even if something as complicated and
contextual as intelligence or a capacity for ‘hard work’ were genetically determined – which
is completely a nonsensical claim – these qualities could still not be predicted on the basis of
a separate trait such as skin colour.

Three. So ‘races’ do not exist genetically speaking. 5 That is to say, there are no human
groups in the world which can be defined, in genetic terms, as being essentially and
absolutely distinct from the wider human family. The assumptions which underlie the use of
racial terms and labels, which I described at the start of the lecture, are just false. Yet having
said this, of course, things immediately become more complicated. Take a look at this
graphic 6 and at this one7 and at this one.8
4
See Boyd, R. and Silk, Joan B. (2009) ‘The Race Concept’ in How Humans Evolved, Norton: New York.
5
One important critique of the concept of ‘race’ was made by a group of scientists, working under the
auspices of the United Nations, in the aftermath of World War II, and summarised in a famous series of
UNESCO statements and in more popular texts such as Ashley Montagu's Man's Most Dangerous Myth.
6
Nazroo, James and Kapadia, Dharmi (2013) ‘Ethnic Inequalities in Labour Market Participation?’, Manchester:
Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity: http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/code/briefingsupdated/Ethnic
%20inequalities%20in%20labour%20market%20participation.pdf
7
https://www.vera.org/publications/in-our-own-backyard-confronting-growth-and-disparities-in-american-
jails
8
http://www.irr.org.uk/news/dying-for-justice/
What does evidence of this kind tell us? It tells us that while ‘races’ may not exist
‘genetically’ they certainly do exist ‘socially’, and that someone’s ascribed or assumed
‘racial’ identity can have a hugely significant impact on aspects of their life: on their chances
of finding work; on the kind of work they get to do; on the likelihood of their being arrested
or becoming involved with the criminal justice system; or, indeed, on their ability to access
justice for themselves or their loved ones.
Just to reiterate: none of the things indicated in these graphics, none of these forms of
inequality, can be explained as being consequences of the ‘racial’ make-up of the people
involved. The fact that black men and women in America are nearly four times more likely to
be incarcerated than white men and women has nothing to do with any ‘innate’ disposition
on their part towards criminality. Rather it has something to do with how people who are
designated ‘black’ – people who are given the racial identity ‘black’ – are situated within the
structures of American political and economic life: how they are likely to be treated by
significant institutions in America, the kinds of lives they are likely to lead, the chances they
are given and the way they are likely to be responded to by the police and the courts.
‘Race’ is not a physical reality, but belief in racial differences, and actions justified by those
beliefs, have real consequences, often including violence and discrimination against
communities who have been racialized in particular ways.
So, what becomes crucial for us, as sociologists, is to understand how and why ideas of
racial identity have been constructed and reproduced, and the effects of these processes. In
short, what matters is to understand what sociologists sometimes call ‘racialization’: the
social processes by which ‘race’ is made and re-made. 9 We have to try to understand how
‘race’ comes to be socially ‘real’ and comes to have real effects because of the way it is
produced in, and shapes, social relationships.

Four. Now this is a very difficult task and and I’m going to try why it is so difficult and then
I’ll close for today. It’s difficult because the racialized structures of our society – which give
rise to different and often unequal treatment of people on the basis of their imagined ‘race’
– continually generate forms of evidence which themselves help to sustain the belief in
racial difference. As I’ve said already: racism produces inequalities between the groups of
people who are designated as racially different. The ‘races’ are not ‘real’ but the inequalities
are and they really shape people’s lives in significant ways.
But those differences can all too easily be ‘read’ as evidence that ‘race’ is what is, after all,
what is really the cause of those inequalities. So, for example, plenty of commentators in
the US, look at the data on black incarceration rates and say that what we have here is
evidence of a problem called: ‘black criminality’. They argue that this data shows us that
there is something about the culture, the behaviour or the propensities of black people
which explains why they are more likely to end up in jail. In other words, they read that data
in ways that deny that ‘racism’ is the problem, and which reasserts the idea that there is a
radical difference between types of people and how they are predisposed to behave.
9
See discussion in Miles, Robert and Brown, Malcolm (2003) Racism, London: Routledge.
And even more well-intentioned studies of different kinds can have these effects. So, you’ve
all seen newspaper or media stories about medical studies which show that there is a higher
than average incidence of, let’s say, cardiovascular disease amongst a particular ‘ethnic’ or
‘racial’ group.10 Now, very often when a story of that kind emerges in the media the ‘go-to’
interpretation is that what this reveals is a genetic propensity towards that disease amongst
those particular communities. In other words, the story is interpreted in such a way that it
reinforces the idea that communities can be understood as genetically distinct, self-
contained population. In other word: a ‘race’, even though that word itself is not often used
in the British context.
Of course, that explanation conceals the fact that the origins of this higher than average
incidence of heart disease may well lie with the social consequences and effects of
discrimination and inequality, and with the way in which those inequalities affect the
lifestyles and well-being of people who are ‘racialised’ in particular ways: the fact, for
example, people of Bangladeshi origin are half as likely to be in full time employment and
twice as likely to be unemployed, compared to the white British population; the fact that
that Bangladeshi communities are overwhelmingly more likely to live in urban areas with
high levels of air pollution, or in poor housing. Or even just the fact that experiences of
direct interpersonal racism have cumulative, damaging health effects over time. 11
So all of this is what the writers Karen and Barbara Fields, who I mentioned briefly in the
lectures on everyday life, call ‘racecraft’. What they mean by that is the way in which the
consequences of racism – living in poverty, living in conditions of stress, facing poor working
situations, facing various forms of real and symbolic violence – all o those things generate a
set of social effects, in people’s live, which can then be held up as ‘proof’ of the existence of
‘race’.
They write: ‘race’ has no moving parts of its own’ – it’s not ‘real’, it doesn’t ever ‘do’
anything in human life – ‘and needs none. It acquires perfectly adequate moving parts when
a person acts upon the reality of the imagined thing; the real action creates evidence for the
imagined thing’. Racism continually creates ‘race’, continually creates the social conditions
in which it seems to make sense to think of the world as being made up of ‘racially’ different
groups with their own propensities and possibilities.12

Five. And all of that raises difficult questions for sociologists as well. Every sociological study
into questions of racial inequality has to work with ‘racial categories’, because it is in terms
of those categories that the inequalities exist. So, for example, I or a colleague might seek to
investigate some aspect of racialised inequality: say, inequalities in access to legal support
for ethnic minorities in this country. An investigation like that may well reveal something
really significant and important. It might demonstrate how much more difficult it is for

10
For example: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-31851979
11
Shreeve, James (1994) ‘Terms of Estrangement’, Discover, 15 (11): 56-62.
12
See Fields, Karen and Fields, Barbara (2012) ‘A Tour of Racecraft’ in Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in
American Life, London: Verso.
people of non-white ethnicities to access legal advice than their white Scottish counterparts
of the same class background.
But the challenge is that this kind of sociological research can very quickly get caught up in
the tricks of ‘racecraft’. The very idea of ‘racial inequality’ can re-enforce the assumption
that there must be things called ‘races’, at least some level. And in that way it’s very easy
for the evidence that sociologists gather to be treated in a way that allows ‘race’ to become
part of the explanation for the problem rather than part of what we are trying to explain.
We can’t describe ‘racialised inequalities’ without gathering data that is framed in terms of
‘racialised identities’. On the other hand, it’s all too easy for data such as the material
mentioned above to appear to support the assumption that there ‘just are’ things called
‘races’, not least because they appear to be present in, and to shape, the findings of a
serious academic study. More than that, it is all too easy for an image like this to lead
towards the assumption that it is something about the nature of those groups which
explains the differences in their situation. In other words, as I’ve just said, it’s all too easy for
data on racialized inequalities to be treated in way that allows ‘race’ to become part of the
explanation for the problem rather than part of what we are trying to explain.

Six. So, that’s the dilemma for any work in the sociology of racism. We need to understand
how ‘races’ are produced in social life, in social relations, and the effects that racialisation
has on people – on the lives they get to lead. But at the same time, we have to think very
carefully about how our own work and the evidence we produce can get caught up,
themselves, in the processes of racialisation.