This article makes the points that the whole notion of race is unsupported by science and is used to gain political advantage. Those points are spot on. But the virulent racism spawned by the false notion of race does not abate, even thought we know better. The whole sorry idea is ingrained in our language and beliefs. Until we begin to work on changing that, seems unlikely we will see helpful change.
Biologically, Jews are basically west Eurasian, along with Persian, Arabs, etc. The west Eurasian population structure corresponds more or less with the "Caucasian" "race" that scientists recognized before they could read DNA. A hundred years ago, US courts ruled that Arabs are "white" because biologically they are part of the west Eurasian population structure population structure. But that's just science, and if folks end up using the term "white" in some other way, such as to mean "European", there's nothing stopping them.
My argument has been that ethnicity is a far better category than race. Beyond being more relevant and detailed, it is not as ephemeral as the everchanging American political definitions of race.
This article makes the points that the whole notion of race is unsupported by science and is used to gain political advantage. Those points are spot on. But the virulent racism spawned by the false notion of race does not abate, even thought we know better. The whole sorry idea is ingrained in our language and beliefs. Until we begin to work on changing that, seems unlikely we will see helpful change.
Biologically, Jews are basically west Eurasian, along with Persian, Arabs, etc. The west Eurasian population structure corresponds more or less with the "Caucasian" "race" that scientists recognized before they could read DNA. A hundred years ago, US courts ruled that Arabs are "white" because biologically they are part of the west Eurasian population structure population structure. But that's just science, and if folks end up using the term "white" in some other way, such as to mean "European", there's nothing stopping them.
My argument has been that ethnicity is a far better category than race. Beyond being more relevant and detailed, it is not as ephemeral as the everchanging American political definitions of race.
I would agree with that and have long thought the same thing