The Concept of Race

Good evening. And another update to the Un-Zone. It's a fine day to post up an update, as it is the Fourth of July holiday. An interesting historical fact. America did not declare its independence on July 4th. It was July 2nd. Honest. Anyways...

I recently filled out a registration form on the Internet. It asked the basic information like name, age, address, etc. and it also asked for racial identification. This question pops up everywhere. You fill this question for the census, for IDs, for nearly every single questionaire you will fill out in your life. I've never understood why they even bother with this question, other than for statistics.
From a scientific viewpoint, there is no such thing as "race." If you analyze DNA, there is nothing to suggest that there are differences between Asians, Caucasians, Native Americans, or any viable racial identity a person can possibly conceive of. All of our DNA is the same when analyzed structurally. We all have the same genes. At the most basic genetic level, we are all the same.
How about superficial features like skin color or physical characteristics? This is the most common form of "racial" identification. Of course, using physical characteristics, it is obvious "Asians" have the squinty-eyed look(this is called the epicanthic fold), have the yellowish-tinge to their skin, and their hair is coarse and black. Given that logic, Native Americans must be Asian. They're not, of course. What about the Ainu, the aboriginal group of Japan? Being from Japan, they must be "Asian." But they don't look Asain. They have very pale skin. Some lack the epicanthic fold. If you just glance at them, they have Asian features and Caucasian features, plus some other features that aren't Asian. So what are they? What about the Aborigines of Australia. They have hair that resembles those from supposed "African" people, eyes like "Asians," and features from Caucasians. So what are they? Others? Caucasians, the "white Europeans," are the hardest to classify solely by physical characteristics. Their skin tone can range from pale-white to swarthy brown; their height can vary greatly; eye color can range from gray, green, blue, brown, etc. Skin color is a lousy way to identify. Any sort of physical characteristic is a bad way to classify people as a "race."
Race is only a social context, one invented by people to separate "us" from "them." It makes "us" feel superior in some way than the savage "them." Europeans used this reason to conquer distant lands and to impose their rule on them. We used this reason to turn certain groups into slaves and claimed this is why their race was inferior. An anthropologist names Carlton Coon proposed Caucasians were "genetically superior." This theory has a long past, the most famous use of racial superiority was by the Nazis.
The idea of "nationality," being French, Korean, South African, Venezuelan, etc. is another social context. What makes a person a certain nationality is belonging inside some imaginary borders drawn on a map. There is no actual physical representation of borders between countries except those built by man. No dotted lines in the middle of mountain ranges or rivers to say this is Canada or this is Zimbabwe. There is no distinct culture that makes us whatever nationality we claim to be. It's all socially decided. People invented it as a form of identity, one that is not really needed.
In the United Stated, it is never enough to be an "American." We have to be "Texan" or "Californian." Or we have to be Asian-American, Hispanic-American, or African-American. Even those descriptions are never enough. We have to be Latino, Chicano, Korean-American, Chinese-American, Black-Caribbean American. We have to specialize. We take it to preposterous extremes. It's like we have to say we are an American of "Irish, Welsh, German, Norwegian, and French descent with a hint of Italian from my mother's side" as if it is a damn coffee from Starbucks. And one can find people who takes this even farther, like it is a badge of distinction. One can never be American, but one must have ancestors from a culturally distinct group like Lapplander, or Basque or Tagalog. If I really delved deep into researching my family tree, I could consider myself Chinese-Korean, or to be politically incorrect, as well as a smartass, a "Chink." It's possible I could have some Japanese ancestry, plus some Mongolian, plus some little bits of Southeast Asian.

What's to point to this? We've used everything to identify ourselves and to separate ourselves from others. Religion. Nationality. Skin color. Everything. And yet, when you look at it closely, we all belong to one race. And that is the human race.

That's all for now.