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Ethnicity is used as a matter of cultural identity of a group, often based on shared ancestry, language, and cultural traditions, while race is applied as a taxonomic grouping, based on physical similarities among groups. Race is a more controversial subject than ethnicity, due to common political use of the term.
Smedley states "Ethnicity and culture are related phenomena and bear no intrinsic connection to human biological variations or race" (Smedley 17). The authors state using physical characteristics to define an ethnic identity is inaccurate.
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.
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]
Race in the U.S. is based on physical characteristics, such as skin color, and has played an essential part in shaping American society even before the nation's conception. [26] Until the civil rights movement of the 1960s, racial minorities in the U.S. faced institutional discrimination and both social and economic marginalization. [232]
An important characteristic of the so-called 'new racism', 'cultural racism' or 'differential racism' is the fact that it essentialises ethnicity and religion, and traps people in supposedly immutable reference categories, as if they are incapable of adapting to a new reality or changing their identity.
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 sociology of race and ethnic relations is the study of social, political, and economic relations between races and ethnicities at all levels of society. This area encompasses the study of systemic racism , like residential segregation and other complex social processes between different racial and ethnic groups.