The Concept of Race - Essay Example

While some view the varieties of the human race as distinct species, others believe in the unity of the human race. In the same vein, modern science claims that all human beings share the same ancestry irrespective of the notable physical and mental differences among them.

Over time, anthropologists tried to classify people on the basis of racial groups, such as the Caucasoid (the European or the white), the Mongoloid (the Chinese, Inuit or Eskimo, and Native Americans), the Negroid (the black  Africans), and the Australoid (the Australian Aborigines). Yet, it should be argued that within each classification, there are many sub-categories of race. Also, color is a newly coined term that has been used to label virtually all races. Thus, races were identified in terms of skin color. This presumption proves relative because there is no consensus between scientists; some advocate that there are three major colors. However, others maintain that there are even more.

In far as I’m concerned, I think that we do not share the same attitude towards the concept of race, merely because we don’t have the same racial, cultural and intellectual background. This is why we find ourselves lost in a whole labyrinth of definitions and theories about race.  However, though we approach the race differently, I think we somehow help specialists and theoreticians of the field construct a clear view of this concept given its importance, especially in our modern time where we ought to emphasize the unity if not the harmony of the human race to help achieve racial dialogue worldwide.