What are western ideas about race?

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When i mean race i mean the classification of human beings.

Answer 1

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Well, there isn't really such a thing as race if you want to be politically correct. There is just too much variation between regions to classify people this way.

However, this is not the prevalent thinking in the Western world. The idea of race began with Linnaeus. Linnaeus developed the modern binomial nomenclature system (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species) and came up for names for the homo sapiens, such as sapiens Africanus nigrus (black African human being), H. sapiens Americanus rubescens (red American human being), H. sapiens Asiaticus fuscusens (brownish Asian human being), and H. sapiens Europaeus albescens (white European human being). These all, of course, were recognized to be part of the same human species.

Famous American anthropologist Carleton Coon concluded that there was five basic races (Caucasoid, Mongloid, Astraloid, Congoid, and Capoids). He hypothesized that before 1500 AD, these races were pure.

It seems this belief has permeated Western culture. However, Sherwood Washburn, a noted anthropologist, questions the usefulness of racial classification: “Since races are open systems which are intergrading, the number of races will depend on the purpose of the classification. I think we should require people who propose a classification of races to state in the first place why they wish to divide the human species.”

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thank you!!

Answer 2

Who gets to the finish line first wins.

Answer 3

The closer you look to European traits the better. The more multi racial you are the more attractive. This is not my personal opinion but all throughout western culture this seems to be an unignorable factor.