The Biological Concept of Race in Human Populations

"If a man could be thoroughly persuaded...of this one principal, that we are all originally sprung from God..knowing yourself to be a citizen of the Universe..the son of God"....with an ability to understand through reason and intellect..."placed above restraint, compulsion, or hinderance, and wholly within our own control and in common with the gods". Epictetus: Discourses and Euchiridion

This Second principle of Epictetus, that all men are in possession of an ability to understand our inter-relatedness and direct our own behavior, has been, in fact, used to vitiate his First Principle. Superficial differences among men are used to partition men into "Racial Groups". First used in Taxonomy, this technique is now used as a sociological classification scheme. It's abuse for Racist purposes can only be understood by an analysis of it's origins.

We are all familiar with breeds in animals, as, for example, in dogs and cats; the German Shepard, the Golden Retriever..etc in dogs. They differ from other breeds in that they have physical and behaviorial characteristics which are unique to that particular breed, i.e., they are genetically determined, and, as such, are inhertied.

All breeds within a particular group of animals are interbreeding, i.e., all dogs of whatever breed can mate with any other dog within or outside of it's breed. Thus, in order to maintain the breed as "pure", one must insure that each new generation is the product of both a male and female of that particular breed; A German Shepard male mated with a German Shepard female will produce German Shepard puppies.

The generalized biological term for a "breed" is race. Racial classification in Human populations is complex and arbritary. A racial scheme in humans is the following:

Black (NEGROID),
White (CAUCASOID),
East Asian (MONGOLOID),
Melanesian/Australian (AUSTRALOID),
AMERICAN INDIAN, and
POLYNESIAN.

As in other animals, all Humans, regardless of their particular race can interbreed, i.e., produce children.
In nature, how have races been produced in Humans? The essential requirements are that: 1) populations of humans are isolated from each other so they cannot interbreed, and, 2) the environment of each population (physical and cultural) is sufficiently different with the result that through generations of selective reproduction, i.e., reproduction within each isolated population only, both physical characteristics ( stature, pigmentation, etc.) and cultural characteristics (religion, language, etc.) have sufficiently developed so as to differentiate each group (as a race) from other such human populations. The populations, as well, have become genetically differentiated in the process of adapting to different environments, both physical and cultural. However, in a recent study, there was only a 3% to 5% difference among the major population groups studied suggesting far fewer genetic differences amoung different human populations.
Biologists use race classification in plants and animals in studying genetic differentiation at the population level; a process necessary in understanding speciation and evolution. Populations of plants and animals can be effectively isolated by some physical barrier (vast distances, mountain range, the oceans, etc.) so as to limit gene excahnge to within their population; a requisite for race formation. However, this is now not the case with Hunam populations.
During earlier periods of our biological and social history Human populations were, in fact, effectively physically isolated so as to produce our current racial differentiation. However, as a result of our technological advances, all physical barriers that had previously separated Human populations (Races of Humans) have been removed. What still remains are social and cultural barriers, based mainly on religious concepts, that are used to seperate people.
Our history is replete with examples of how the Biologists concept of race, in studying genetic differentiation and speciation in plants and animals, has been tragically and brutally used in the mis-treatment, murder, and even the extermination of people that appear to be or are, in fact, different. We read with horror the history of the extermination of Native Americans by their White "Christain" brothers, centuries of enslavemnet of Black Africans, centuries of anti-Semitism, "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia and Croatia, in Rwanda....and the violent deplacement of an indigenous people in what was formely Palestine in the creation, by the United Nations, of an artifical State (based primarily on real estate claims in the Old Testament and an expanded concept of race based solely on Religion) for perpetuating the purity of a Religious cult.
The historic separation of Human populations has produced great variations in both phycical characterictics and culture amongst us. As bases for racial classification, these differeces are superficial. There are only INDIVIDUAL differences, aptitude, motivation, and citizenship, that differentiate individuals and merit consideration.
In 1922 the United States Supreme Court arbitrarily defined the meaning of the word "Caucasian Race"
"In the endeavor to ascertain the meaning of the statute we must not fail to keep in mind that it does not employ the word 'Caucasian,' but the words 'white persons,' and these are words of common speech and not of scientific origin."
...But what is the meaning of "white person" ? The Court continues:
"But in this country, during the last half century especially, the word by common usage has acquired a popular meaning, not clearly defined to be sure, but sufficiently so to enable us to say that its popular as distinguished from its scientific application is of appreciably narrower scope. It is in the popular sense of the word, therefore, that we employ is as an aid to the construction of the statute, for it would be obviously illogical to convert words of common speech used in a statute into words of scientific terminology when neither the latter nor the science for whose purposes they were coined was within the contemplation of the framers of the statute or of the people for whom it was framed. The words of the statute are to be interpreted in accordance with the understanding of the common man from whose vocabulary they were taken.
The question for determination [261 U.S. 204, 210] is not, therefore, whether by the speculative processes of ethnological reasoning we may present a probability to the scientific mind that they have the same origin, but whether we can satisfy the common understanding that they are now the same or sufficiently the same to justify the interpreters of a statute-written in the words of common speech, for common understanding, by unscientific men-in classifying them together in the statutory category as white persons....
When they extended the privilege of American citizenship to 'any alien being a free white person' it was these immigrants-bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh-and their kind whom they must have had affirmatively in mind."
In other words, Congress defined "white person", with the blessing of the United States Supreme Court, as anyone that looks like them!!!!

It was the "popular" notion of what constitutes a "white person" that was used to deny US Citizenship to a Hindu.
We are but ONE "Racially" heterogenous Human population....so that....any schematic notion of race in Human populations becomes arbitrary; used solely for the expression of hate, social and cultural exculsivity, and invidious discrimination.