“Race” is a social construct

Yep, you read that right. The concept of "race" is not a biological reality, but merely a social construct. Elaborate? Why certainly. Let's head back to the dictionary (www.thefreedictionary.com):

race
n.

1. A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.

2. A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution: the German race.

3. A genealogical line; a lineage.

4. Humans considered as a group.

5. Biology
a. An interbreeding, usually geographically isolated population of organisms differing from other populations of the same species in the frequency of hereditary traits. A race that has been given formal taxonomic recognition is known as a subspecies.
b. A breed or strain, as of domestic animals.

6. A distinguishing or characteristic quality, such as the flavor of a wine.

Okey dokey, let's get started. #5 and #6 are completely unrelated to Human beings, so let's discount them straight away. #3, In my opinion, is instantly discounted because at it's very roots, all of humanity stems from the same genealogical line, so it's obviously impractical to seperate people into "races"on that definition. That's the easy ones out the way.

Next, let's look at #2:

A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution: the German race.

Let's start with "common history". What counts as "common history"? The Americans, Japanese, French, Italians, Australians, Poles, Russians, Germans, Austrians, Belgians and so on and so forth all share the common history of participation in World War 2, are we all of the same race? What about "geographic distribution"? There are millions of black people who have lived in the UK for hundreds of years but are still considered a seperate race, so that doesn't make sense either. As for nationality, the whole concept of a "nation" is itself a social construct, so that pretty much deals with that definition.

Definition #1 is the one that seems to be most commonly used. Let's look at it again:

A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.

How vague and ridiculous does that sound? "more or less a distinct group"? I have Hazel eyes, Brown hair and size 11 feet, all of which are "genetically transmitted physical characteristics" from my father, are the two of us (and all other hazal eyed, brown haired size 11 footed people) part of a seperate race? If not, why the fuck not? Those characteristics denote a (more or less) distinct group don't they? Obviously, those characteristics are utterly arbitrary, they no more denote a race than hand width, finger length, height, weight, number of teeth or any other physical characteristic; so why does skin colour? That shit makes as much sense as a chocolate teapot. Bottom line is, skin colour denotes a race because society says so, no other reason.