Is+race+an+overall+word+for+skin+color+and+culture,+or+is+it+a+separate+idea?

**Is Race A Synonym for Skin Color and Culture?** Goal: To show that although skin color and culture are important factors in determining race, skin color and culture do not completely describe a race; therefore, skin color and culture are not synonymous with race.

Race is a way that social scientists use to categorize people into distinct groups based on certain criteria. The dictionary defines race as follows:

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 * 1.** A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.
 * 2.** A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution: the German race.
 * 3.** A genealogical line; a lineage.
 * 4.** Humans considered as a group

These definitions make references to genetic similarities, common history, and geographic distribution. Is race then a way to categorize hereditary genetic characteristics such as skin color, or is race a way to categorize culture based on common history and geographic distribution? Can we truly use just one characteristic such as color to categorize race? Or is the question of race more [|complex], THIS LINK DID NOT WORK FOR ME -- IT IS ALSO NOT CLEAR WHERE IT WOULD TAKE ME -- MAKE YOUR LINKS MORE DESCRIPTIVE requiring an understanding of more than any one single characteristic. Anthropologists use physical traits such as skin color to classify race, but an argument can be made that skin color alone cannot be used to classify race. When one sees a person with dark skin, one may think that an African-American just walked by, and another may think that a [|black person] – Jamaican, West Africans, or Asian-African American—just walked by. The difference between someone seeing the dark skinned person in the context of their culture and someone who only sees the skin color leads one to think that race is more complex that using any one single characteristic to categorize a race.

Scientists define skin color as a variation in the [|melanin] levels of skin cells ranging from “white” to “black”. These variations occur due to the body’s natural adaptation to the levels of sunlight over generations of people. However, even within a distinct race, people have been treated differently due to the variation in their skin color thus creating sub-cultures. For example, in the African-American culture, it is more desirable to have lighter skin tone, and those with lighter skin tones are [|ranked higher socially] than those with very dark skin. Studies have also shown that lighter skin-toned African American are more likely to succeed and better educated than darker skin-toned African-Americans.

Webster Dictionary defines culture as follows: []


 * a** **:** the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations
 * b**: the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; //also//: the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time
 * c**: the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization 
 * d**: the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic  changing the culture of materialism will take time — Peggy O'Mara

Culture is a shared set of behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, values, goals, and conventions. If culture is used as a factor to categorize race, then it is possible that there would be as many races as there are nations! For example, there is a controversy that the Jewish people are a race because they shared common belief, values, conventions, attitudes. There are those who believe that the Jewish people [|are not a race] because they do not share a common ancestry or biological distinction.

When I started out in my research, I began with the belief that race was a synonym for culture and skin color. Very soon after, I realized that race is a very complex word that tries to describe a system of categorizing people into groups. With the modern day ease of travel, the readily available internet that is rich in information, classifying race is not as simple as a common geographic location, common physical characteristics, or common values. With the ease of travel, people are mingling and marrying interracially creating blends of physical traits, cultures, and values. I would like to gain a better understanding of race. Can you really define race or is race becoming an obsolete term? Is there really a way to differentiate the races? Is it race or is it ethnicity? I would like to do more research on culture as a correlation for race differentiation.
 * What do I plan to do next? **

AnnBibHutchinson