Flashback Friday.
The images below are all screen shots from the fantastic American Anthropological Association website on race. They are designed to show how we take what is in reality a nuanced spectrum of skin color and turn it into racial categories. In this first image, they show how we could, conceivably, separate human beings into short, medium, and tall based on height:
In this second image, they show how, by adding two additional figures, both taller than the tallest in the previous image, the way in which we designate people can easily change.
And this third image demonstrates how, when we actually consider all potential heights, where we draw the line between short and medium and medium and tall is arbitrary and, ultimately, not very useful.
Skin color is like height. If we just look at three groups with very different skin colors, there appears to be a significant and categorical difference between those three groups of people.
But, if we consider a wide range of people, it becomes clear that skin color comes in a spectrum, not in categories (such as the five from which U.S. citizens are forced to choose on the census).
Much more on the social construction of race at our Pinterest board.
This post originally appeared in 2008.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 41
Anonymous — September 18, 2008
I find it ironic how the association between the first two and latter two images perpetuates rather than destabilizes certain discriminatory perceptions. It is so easy to get the "the lighter, later, greater" image even in the absence of x-y coordinates.
Corin — September 19, 2008
As an Anthropology student, I am just getting into a discussion on race in my one course and think this is so fascinating!
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Yrro Simyarin — July 11, 2014
So species is a social construction, too, right? I mean, there's no clear boundary line between species -- look at ring species for example. Is there anything in biological categorization that isn't a social construction?
Bill R — July 11, 2014
I never saw race as being based on skin color since there is such great overlap in skin color among peoples of different races.
M_Young — July 21, 2014
Nobody thinks that Vijay Singh is black in the US way, i.e. Afro-American. This despite his skin color being darker than the President's. Singh has straight hair and angular features (to take just two of the more obvious signals which denote where the majority of his ancestors came from).
In short, not only is the spectrum analogy bad, but this post ignores race (or 'large continental population' or whatever term you want) is evident on multiple axes.
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Natasha Crosby — October 1, 2024
The writer simplifies the subject with clear examples, making the topic accessible to a broad audience. The visuals support the text perfectly, and the warm tone ensures the reader stays interested.
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tax — October 12, 2024
It's a low IQ (or a sad PC) strawman to conflate skin color alone with Race. Races are sets of features born of thousands of years of separate geographic evolution, so that, even if a sub-Saharan (or more obvious pygmy) was an albino he would not be mistaken as 'white'/Euro. (or East Asian) Facial features, hair color and texture, etc.