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Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. [1] The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of various kinds, including those characterized by close kinship relations. [2]
The modern biological definition of race developed in the 19th century with scientific racist theories. The term scientific racism refers to the use of science to justify and support racist beliefs, which goes back to the early 18th century, though it gained most of its influence in the mid-19th century, during the New Imperialism period.
Social interpretations of race regard the common categorizations of people into different races. Race is often culturally understood to be rigid categories (Black, White, Pasifika, Asian, etc) in which people can be classified based on biological markers or physical traits such as skin colour or facial features. This rigid definition of race is ...
The word "race", interpreted to mean an identifiable group of people who share a common descent, was introduced into English in the 16th century from the Old French rasse (1512), from Italian razza: the Oxford English Dictionary cites the earliest example around the mid-16th century and defines its early meaning as a "group of people belonging to the same family and descended from a common ...
The United States has a racially and ethnically diverse population. [1] At the federal level, race and ethnicity have been categorized separately. The most recent United States census recognized five racial categories (White, Black, Native American/Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander), as well as people who belong to two or more of the racial categories.
Mulatto (/ m j uː ˈ l æ t oʊ /, / m ə ˈ l ɑː t oʊ /) (original Italian spelling) is a racial classification that refers to people of mixed African and European ancestry only. When speaking or writing about a singular woman in English, the word is mulatta (Spanish: mulata).
Before Crenshaw coined her definition of intersectionality, there was a debate on what these societal categories were. The once definite borders between the categories of gender, race, and class have instead fused into a multidimensional intersection of "race" that now includes religion, sexuality, ethnicities, etc.
Identifying human races in terms of skin colour, at least as one among several physiological characteristics, has been common since antiquity.Such divisions appeared in early modern scholarship, usually dividing humankind into four or five categories, with colour-based labels: red, yellow, black, white, and sometimes brown.