It's an arbitrary grouping, arrived at by small-minded people, based on things as stupid as which land mass your great great great grandpappy lived on, designed to help those small-minded people wrap their little brains around things because they are too dim to understand a world without labels.
Too strong. You can talk of tall people, people of medium height, and short people -- without prejudice to the 'humaness' of any of them.
A world without labels? It has advantages and disadvantages.
Now, if someone believes there are such things as 'races,' they may indeed hold such a belief because they want some kind of racial hierarchy in which, most likely, the race to which they believe they belong is given some kind of privileged position.
But one can believe in the notion of 'race' without believing in such a hierachy.
There are biologists who still believe in the notion of 'race,' but who believe also that the concept is far emptier than was once widely believed. These are not necessarily small-minded people.
How one should describe mem is a question I'm still pondering.
But he's not
in principle an asshole for his belief in races.
In other news: There is no reason to say that, because the 'Asian' and 'white' races left Africa -- what? 100,000? close to 200,000 years ago? -- and, some say, evolved into something distinct from the population that remained in Africa ... that the same should be said of Australian aboriginals, who may have left 40,000 years ago. No doubt all populations changed, but there is no inconsistency in saying the first two changed to such a degree that they are now to be classified as different 'races,' while the last did not change to any equivalent degree.
This is not a
conceptual question. It is an
empirical question, on which I have no opinion ... because I have no empirical knowledge.
The concept of race has been horribly abused and the cause of much human suffering. There is much reason to treat it delicately and to be alert to the possibility of stereotyping and odious normative judgments entering the equation.
That said, the notion that 'race' has some validity is not the preserve only of fools.
Do I believe that the notion of 'race' is worth preserving?
I have no idea.