Who came up with the whole race classifications?

Answer 1

Race is a social construct that was borne out of the nineteenth century scientific revolution and the post-Napoleanic era of overseas European Imperialism. Prior to that Europe had generally regarded the world with a very humanist perspective and tended to label people by their ethnicity or nationality rather than their skin colour. Of course skin color was a trait that people looked askance at when someone was different, but it had nowhere near the predominance it has today. A perfect example of this is to be found in Shakespeare's Othello. Othello feels throughout the play that he is not respected as much as is owed because he is a Moor. The fact he is a convert to Christianity is also an issue. His black skin only comes up incidentally when he talks with his wife about their odd appearance as a couple.

Now when the Scientific Revolution came to the fore and Europe's empires reached farther around the world, Europeans where all caught up in looking at the world with an "objective" and "scientific" lens. That's when all the animals and plants got latin names and were put into "families" for example. Along the way, the classifications of "race" and the use of skin color as the determining condition came to the fore. Over time this social construct just kept growing with new theories like "Social Darwinism" and the "burden of Empire" so that race became all that more engrained in our society. Even our own modern efforts to remedy the injustices society has perpetrated on the basis of "race" turn around and re-enforce these social constructions.

Anyway, to offer a simple conclusion. European scientists came up with the idea of race and everybody else ran with it.

(pardon the crappy pun)

PS: As hard as this is to believe, Charles Darwin was both a creationist and made no contribution to the promotion of the idea of races. He simply proposed a theory he found scientific grounds for and all the anti-creationists and racists that were out there borrowed his theories with his name attached to promote their own agenda. Darwin would have never been a Darwinist.

Answer 2

Race classification has evolved in the social order of humans over the past few thousand years. However, it must be understood that the reasoning for this is usually political and is meant to divide society so that we will be too busy fighting among ourselves to watch what those in positions of power are doing. Been going on that way for centuries.

Answer 3

Even anthropologists have a stressful time defining race because it somewhat is often shifting. A black individual could be African American, black African immigrant, a Caribbean individual of substantial African historical past, a black Latin, etc. As you point out, white frequently skill ecu ancestry, yet how might you classify say a white individual who immigrated to the U. S. from Australia, Australian-American? G'day, mate! i think of ethnicity is a lot greater precise because it takes this way of existence of the guy into attention. The labels could be problematic at cases, for constructive, even though it somewhat is an attempt to get at the back of in basic terms the DNA.

Answer 4

It has been that way since Old Testament times when different tribes held different names.They were classed by their status,wealth,size,contributions,knowledge and their influence.Man on the whole has done this to themselves since they did not see everyone as being equal as God does.Quite frankly, when we get cut I am still to see the person with another colour of blood than red.

Answer 5

My assumption (and bear in mind, it's only a guess) would be Darwin and his Origin of Species when it mentions races like mongloids, caucasoids, etc.

Answer 6

Don't know but I'll keep checking this question for the answer

Answer 7

THE CENSUS BUREA