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sundin13 on 18 February 2018
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o_O.Q said:
sundin13 said:

Let me ask you this: Why do you think race matters?

True, we can sometimes distinguish between races by physical characteristics (however, other times we can't), but we could also separate people by height or by hair color. Overall, the importance of race is a social construct, not something genetic or inherent.

While you can argue that race has a genetic component, however small, that doesn't explain its role as a point of division.

"the thing is that you do people a disservice because there are, for example, medical problems that are more severe in one group over the other such as sensitivity to sun light and susceptibility to high blood pressure, which are important to note"

 

"Overall, the importance of race is a social construct, not something genetic or inherent."

do you feel the same about sex?

Do you do people a disservice by not dividing by race? When I go to a doctor about, say, high blood pressure, he doesn't ask me where in the world my family originated from, he asks me if anyone in my family suffers from high blood pressure. The reason for this is because within-group variation is often much larger and more prominent than between-group variation. While broad patterns may exist, they often largely overlap between-groups and they say little about the situation of any one individual within that group.

Further, since when have we divided humans based on susceptibility to high blood pressure? I am white and I have no history of high blood pressure in my family. I have a white friend who does have a history of high blood pressure. I have a black friend who does not have a history of high blood pressure. If we are dividing based on medical characteristics, it would make far more sense to put me and hypothetical black friend in the same groups and hypothetical white friend in a separate group. Why would we use such broad brush divisions which serve poorly as a predictor?

And why are we dividing humans by susceptibility to disease? When I filled out forms on my SAT, I wasn't asked if my father suffered from male pattern baldness. Susceptibility to disease is more or less irrelevant to a school. That is something that should be discussed with a doctor (and again, if the first thing your doctor asks you when you go in talking about lumps in your breasts is whether or not you are white, you should probably find a new doctor). 

As far as sex, it is a significantly more prominent genetic factor than race, however, to some extent, the divisions we have created are social. That is what gender is. Gender speaks to the social constructs surrounding biological sex, and on that point, the importance of these divisions is a social construct. While genetic differences in sex are obviously real, they are also more complicated than a simple binary, and transgendered individuals are often a manifestation of one or both of these points. I'm not really sure what kind of answer you are looking for on this question, so I could elaborate if you ask me something in more detail.