Depends what you mean by "everyday". Among the everyday discourse of reasonable people, race is a biologically trivial matter of skin color, facial shape, hair texture, etc. but otherwise meaningless or trivial. Its importance lies in its visibility, as an object of prejudice. It can also be a criterion of familiarity that encourages many people to hang out with others who seem the most familiar, or with their "own kind". This criterion of familiar appearance can lead to informal self-segregation, can perpetuate cultural differences, and can lead less thoughtful people to associate the cultural differences with race, and to believe that certain ways of behaving are racially inherited.
___So there are people who attribute behavioral characteristics to race, and whom most people call "racists". Racists invest moral and behavioral significance in race, and often seek to institutionalize these differences.
___Also, many people seem not to be able to tell the difference between a general statement and statements of the the sort, "All x is y." A general statement contains internal diversity, while the latter sort of statement specifically rules that out in one dimension. Even if there were general differences of behavioral tendency between races, as there are between the sexes, the internal diversity, combined with the statistical behavioral overlap between the races (and the sexes) would make categorical discrimination against all members of one group irrational, and well, stupid.
2007-03-21 08:25:21
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answer #1
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answered by G-zilla 4
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