Learning Objectives

This chapter discusses the concept of "race" as it is applied to humans. It shows how the biological and social categories of race are largely unrelated, and demonstrates this by discussing the construction of race in Brazil, Japan, and the United States.

I.

You must understand why there is no biological basis for the racial classification of humans. In particular, you need to understand what a cline is and why it is essential to understand that human traits are distributed along clines, not in clusters.

II.

You have to understand how the distribution of human skin color is the result of adaptations to different environments.

III.

You need to understand what hypodescent is, how it operates, and why it exists in the United States.

IV.

You need to understand the Japanese concept of race and how it differs from how race is constructed in the United States and Brazil.

V.

You must understand how race is constructed in Brazil and how it differs from how race is constructed in the United States and Japan. In particular, you need to understand the fluidity of Brazilians' concept of race: how it changes and what makes it change.

VI.

Most importantly, you must understand that race is not a real, or inherent part of human biology. Rather, it is culturally constructed in different ways by different cultures.

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