Reddit reviews Race and Ethnicity: The Basics

There is a biological basis for differences between individuals, however the differences are largely arbitrary and meaningless considering the highly globalized society we live in and the amount of crossbreeding we've done. We give them meaning by applying them to a system of value and acting on and reinforcing that system. This makes the implications and ramifications of race a very real thing and makes the "race is culturally constructed" argument a little bit incomplete in modern understanding.

Nearly everything in our lives has a culturally constructed meaning, but we shouldn't sell it short.

If you want to learn more there is a good book on the subject that's short and explains things pretty easily.

Race, and identity in general, is a complicated subject that I struggle to explain regularly. The guys in that book do a far better job than I could.

Hey buddy, thx for the tip about dictionaries, I'm glad you know how to use them.
But to try to burst my bubble (and maybe learn something about the concepts of ethnicity and/or ethnic groups), you should check out some of these other small books first:


-https://books.google.pt/books/about/Ethnicity.html?id=jYsYJSDXflYC&redir_esc=y


-https://www.amazon.co.uk/Race-Ethnicity-Basics-Peter-Kivisto/dp/0415773741


-https://www.amazon.com/Ethnicity-Oxford-Readers-John-Hutchinson/dp/0192892746


-https://books.google.pt/books/about/The_Ethnicity_Reader.html?id=9yBQtExDppkC&redir_esc=y



To jumpstart, and I'm not even kidding, just try to read the introduction to "ethnic groups and boundaries", by Frederick Barth: the text is from 1969, and it's absolutely seminal on nowadays' understanding of ethnic group formation and, above all, ethnic group persistence in time. (link to pdf: http://www.bylany.com/kvetina/kvetina_etnoarcheologie/literatura_eseje/2_literatura.pdf)


If you wanna go further down this road, check "ethnicity without groups", by Rogers Brubaker: the best modern critical thinking around ethnicity and group formation, IMO. (link to pdf: https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/podzim2015/SOC587/um/Brubaker_Ethnicity_without_Groups.pdf)



Now, lets move on to the next part of your comment. I did love the end of it. The part where you assume I have a bachelor's degree (IF I even managed to graduate yet, ofc - 'cause I'm so dumb) is nice.

But the best part is that amazing scientific lesson you gave us all: "Since the beginning of life animals have had hunting grounds they fought for, later evolved to humans with specific racial, social traits with country borders."


Seriously, I am thinking about printing this and framing it.
Thx a bunch, bud. I should start making calls, because entire academic fields will disappear and universities will close down: you just solved social science AND evolutionary science in a single sentence!


Finally, I just want to clear this up for ya, buddy: I do not have any spanish comments, and the fact that you think that I'm mexican (and that what I wrote in my reddit's history is spanish) says a lot more about your ignorance than it says about me.


Cheers