Race???

            The word "race" is defined as one of the group of populations constituting humanity. Upon a first glance, the word seems easy enough to understand. However, what are these groups, and how does one categorize them? Who fits where, and why? These questions among others arise when thinking of race. Does race really exist? Genetically, a race may be defined as a group with gene frequencies differing from those of the other groups in the human species, although the genes in question make up a tiny percentage of the total human genome. The term race is inappropriate when applied to national, religious, or cultural groups, nor can the biological criteria of race be equated with mental characteristics (intelligence, personality, and character). Races arose in response to mutation, selection, geographic adaptation, and genetic drift; racial differentiation occurred relatively late in history. In the 19th and early 20th century, Joseph Arthur Gobineau and Houston Stewart Chambe!.
             rlain attributed cultural and psychological values to race, proposing theories of racial superiority, an approach that culminated in the vicious racial doctrines of Nazi Germany. By limiting the criteria to certain physical characteristics, anthropologists at one time agreed on the existence of three relatively distinct groups of people, namely Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid, distinguished by such traits as skin color, hair type and color, shape of body, head, and facial features, and blood traits. Today, however, there is no scientific basis whatsoever for a general classification of races according to a scale of relative superiority, and racial prejudices and myths are no more than a means of finding a scapegoat when the position of individuals and the cohesion of a group are threatened. Anthropologists stress the heterogeneity of world population, and many reject the concept of race outright. This concept is not understood by most, and must be emphasized to people around the world.