[Stacypettlerr]

Race both exists and does not exist, in my view. It's such a large, complex idea, it's no surprise that it has ended up coming to encompass a number of definitions. FOr me, there is the social, popular definition of race which varies culture to culture (Can a person be a Caucasoid if they have dark skin? The social definition would say no, as per parts of the US). There is the academic definition (race is a grouping of similar physical features typical to certain populations). Then, there is the biological definition (There is an "Indian gene." There is a "Japanese gene." etc).

Personally, I feel that the social definition of race is shot. I've seen first hand people from the Middle East called non-Caucasians due to the social definition. Furthermore, due to the social definition, you see certain groups of white individuals calling themselves Aryan and parading the word around as if it's a synonym for fairness (complexion). This is a very very very silly claim as Aryans are actually an ethnolinguistic group.

Next up is the academic definition of the word. This is the definition I believe in, simply because of the nature of academia: if you can assign an object a quality, you can assign it a category. Race is simply a category based on the physical features of an individual. Yes, this does involve ancestry to a great amount, as one is unlikely to hold certain physical traits without having a parent who caries the genes for those traits. It is also possible, however, to see an individual hold certain traits while his/her parents do not have those traits, simply due to genetic mutation, the complexity of the genetics itself (linked genes, for one...), as well as cultural/environmental effects on the child (body deformation for beauty, malnutrition, etc). Granted, cultural and environmental effects would probably be considered a "false positive," but could the same be said for unexpected racial classifications born out of genetic complexity and/or mutation? Take for example down's syndrome. Due to down's syndrome, a person can take on certain features more typical to Asiatic populations, even if that individual does not have any known Asian ancentry.

Finally, there is the genetic definition, which is... well, interesting. If we look at the genetic definition of race as purely genetic and not based on how a person looks (remember, I'm reserving how a person looks for the academic definition), you'll see that common racial definitions begin to break down. Lines begin to become heavily blurred due to how OLD these genes typically are- they long predate modern sociopolitical boundaries and commonly date back to our nomadic era. Furthermore, you begin to see alleles on a per-allele basis instead of groupings of alleles. Ugh, this is very difficult to describe without trying to sum of an entire course on genetics... Basically, from a genetic point of view, race exists but not as something you can easily categorize people by. You cannot point to any single gene and say, LOOK! THIS GUY IS DEFINITELY BLACK 'CAUSE HE HAS THIS ALLELE/HAPLOTYPE! The person's physical racial traits could still very well not be typical to someone from sub-Saharan Africa! And what if the majority of his alleles are, in fact, typical of Europeans? What would his race be classified as from a genetics definition? It's very very complex...

Of course, all of these definitions do overlap to a certain degree. It's important to recognize when and how they overlap for each individual and to work within those boundries when discussing race. For a person working within a strictly social definition of race, no, race does not exist unless s/he WANTS race to exist (insert sociology ramblings here). For a person with a strictly genetic definition, race is arbitrary. For a scholar, race exists, but as a tool.

Eh, whatever. It's 4 AM and I need sleep. Here's to hoping I didn't make any huge syntax/spelling errors, like I am *SO* prone to doing when it's this late!