Human races do not exist, but society continues to use them: the weight of a word that divides

The word “race” He has accompanied us for centuries, yet he continues to be one of the most controversial: has entered everyday life, in official documentsin lawsin political discussionsuntil it becomes a term that might seem natural but it is not. Talk about “human races” It means moving in a slippery field, made of history, prejudices and power: born for justify slavery and colonization, has fueled hierarchies and violence, until it becomes A myth dismantled by sciencebut still alive in its social consequences.

The classification of humans in 5 races

The European colonial expansion from the fifteenth century raised a crucial question: How to justify conquest, slavery and domain? It is from here on that the idea of ​​race takes shape. For much of the story, human beings have distinguished the “we” from the “others” on the basis of cultural or religious criteria: Christians and pagans, Muslims and the unfaithful, sedentary and nomads, the idea that the differences were written in the bodies, in the color of the skin or in the physical traits Therefore, it is not a concept born in the laboratory, but in the space of the designer ships, plantations, colonial administrations.

In the XVIII century Modern science begins to systematically deal with the differences between human beings. Carl Linnaeusfamous Swedish naturalist, in 1735 It inserts the man into his taxonomy and divides him into varieties related to continents: Homo Europaeus, Asiaticus, Africanus And Americanus. Each attributes physical and moral characteristics, creating implicit hierarchies.

A few decades later, Johann Friedrich BlumenbachGerman doctor, elaborates a classification in five breeds: Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American and Malaysian. Although his intent was descriptive, his terminology spreads enormously and becomes the basis for many subsequent theories.

In the 19th centurywith the development of colonialism and the need to justify social and economic inequalities, racial theories multiply. Frenology (the study of the shape of the skull), anthropometry (physical measurements) and later eugenics build an imaginary in which cultural differences are read as biological differences.

The idea of ​​the breed it was not neutral: served to establish who he was entitled to command and who should obey. It served to justify the slavery of Africans in American plantations, the expropriation of indigenous lands, the colonization of whole continents. Later, in the twentieth century, racial theories would have been used to legitimize totalitarian and genocidal regimes, such as the Nazi regimes. In this sense, the breed has never been only a scientific category, but above all one political tool.

Because for science human races do not exist

With the 20th centuryhowever, the certainties began to collapse: the anthropologist Franz Boas He showed that physical traits are much more variable than one could think and that cultural differences have no biological bases.

There geneticsstarting from 1950sconfirms that all human beings belong to a single species and share over 99.9% of the genetic heritage. The differences we perceive as “racial” (skin color, somatic traits, hair), are superficial variations, the result of millennial environmental adaptations. To use these new theses, UNESCO, in 1950publishes a declaration in which it is clearly affirmed that There are no human biological races And therefore, more than natural categories, the breeds are social “myths”.

The breed as a social construction

If science has dismantled the biological idea of ​​breed, The company continues to use it. Because, even if the races do not exist in a natural sense, they exist in social consequences. Being perceived as “black”, “white”, “Asian” or “indigenous” can be determined, sadly, the work that is obtained, the possibility of renting a house, the probability of undergoing police checks, access to basic medical care.

Scholars therefore speak of breed as a social construction: an invented category, but which has real effects. Ignoring the word may also mean ignoring the discrimination and inequalities it produces.

The debate on the use of the term “race” remains open. Some argue that it is better to abandon it, replacing it with concepts such as “ethnicity”, “origin” or “culture”, because continuing to speak of a race would risk keeping a dangerous fiction alive. On the other hand, others believe it is necessary use the word with critical awareness.

In civil rights movements, such as the Black Lives Matterthe term “Race” serves to report systemic racism: not to say that the breeds exist biologically, but to make visible how they are built socially. In Italythe word “race” still appears in the ConstitutiontoArticle 3which prohibits “breed” discrimination. In recent years there are those who have proposed to replace it with “ethnic origin”, but the change is not, for now, has been approved.

So if the breed is not a natural reality but a historical invention, born to justify inequalities and exploits, today we know that the breeds do not exist in a biological sense, but there are their social and political effects. Perhaps the question is not so much if we still have to use this word, but how to use it: not to divide, but to unmask the inequalities it has created and which, unfortunately, continue to condition our present.