Abandon Race. Focus on Racism

The concept of race emerged in the 1600s with the trans-Atlantic slave trade, justifying slavery; it has been used to justify exploitation, denigration and decimation. Since then, despite contrary scientific evidence, a deeply-rooted belief has taken hold that race, indicated by, e.g., skin color or facial features, reflects fundamental biological differences. We propose that the term race be abandoned, substituting ethnic group while retaining racism, with the goal of dismantling it. Despite scientific consensus that race is a social construct, in official U.S. classifications, Hispanic/Latino is an ethnicity while African American/Black, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian/Pacific Islander, and European American/White are races. There is no scientific basis for this. Each grouping reflects ancestry in a particular continent/region and shared history, e.g., the genocide and expropriation of Indigenous peoples, African Americans' enslavement, oppression and ongoing disenfranchisement, Latin America's Indigenous roots and colonization. Given migrations over millennia, each group reflects extensive genetic admixture across and within continents/regions. Ethnicity evokes social characteristics such as history, language, beliefs, customs. Race reinforces notions of inherent biological differences based on physical appearance. While not useful as a biological category, geographic ancestry is a key social category for monitoring and addressing health inequities because of racism's profound influence on health and well-being. We must continue to collect and analyze data on the population groups that have been racialized into socially constructed categories called races. We must not, however, continue to use that term; it is not the only obstacle to dismantling racism, but it is a significant one.

Automated summary

The concept of race emerged in the 1600s with the trans-Atlantic slave trade and has been used to justify slavery, exploitation, denigration, and decimation. Despite scientific evidence against it, a deeply-rooted belief in biological differences based on physical appearance still persists. The term "race" should be abandoned in favor of "ethnic group" to dismantle racism, which influences health and well-being profoundly.