How to Determine the Actual Race of a Person - Term Paper Example

The concept of race is simply something that we have come to think of as automatic due to the mental conditioning that we have undergone since an early age.

          Since race has no genetic basis, one can safely say that race is therefore an illusion. Neither does a human sub-specie exist as these do in the animal kingdom for us to perceive that one human being is different from another. We all belong to the same specie and therefore exist in the same reality. That is why skin color cannot be used to determine the race of a person. The illusion of race on a physical basis is simply wrong because the real differences between people exist not on a physical basis but rather on genetic variation with 85% of traits being shared by a given population. Therefore, race is not biological and no one skin color is better than the other (“What is Race? Is Race for Real?”).

          Due to the fact that there has been an explosion of mixed-race births in the United States, the issue of race has come to be outdated using the traditional definition. Therefore, the existence of multiracial beings has forced sociologists to begin studying race anew when it comes to “intergroup relations, racial stigmatization, social identity, social perception, discrimination, and the intersectionality of race with other social categories such as social class” (Shih, Margaret, Sanchez, Diana T. “When Race Becomes Even More Complex: Towards Understanding the Concept of Multiracial Identity and Experiences”).

          The challenge that multiracials pose before the discussion of race is now how to determine the actual race of a person or if the issue of race even exists for that particular person because of the multiple bloodlines running through their veins.