Race and ethnicity are terms widely used in the popular media. The media use
these terms in a variety of contexts that seem to suggest that they both refer
to the same concept of human variation. From an anthropological point of view,
race and ethnicity are not the same. It is important to understand the differences
between these two concepts because they hold great implications for how we view
other human beings and ourselves.
Ethnicity is a group or individual’s conception of cultural identity and refers to cultural demarcation between and within societies. Culture includes a wide variety of learned behaviors. Culture is everything that a human being learns to survive in his or her natural and social environment.
Cultural practices include clothing choices, culinary practices, celebrated holidays, subsistence, rules of social discourse, language, religious and ideological views, social organization and other social practices. Culture is everything that one identifies with that is not inherited.
Culture is infinitely variable across time and space and is the subject of study for anthropologists and sociologists alike. Cultural anthropologists study ethnicity in contemporary non-Western cultures.
Sociologists traditionally study cultural variation within Western cultures including, of course, our own. Archaeologists study cultures of the past, focusing on the collection of material culture or artifacts to reconstruct extinct cultural systems.
Culture variation is responsible for the greatest observable differences between human societies since it is learned after birth by each individual through group interaction. Cultural variation across this planet is the result of over 100,000 years of cultural evolution within human societies living in different environments.
If ethnicity refers to learned behavior (non-genetic); what does race refer to? Race is difficult to define because it has multiple meanings. The popular media tend to use it interchangeably with ethnicity; for anthropologists, this confusion is quite troubling. We are all one species - Homo sapiens, yet, there are obvious and not so obvious physical differences between us.
The concept of race from a physical anthropologist’s point of view refers solely to biological variation. This includes phenotypical differences in stature, skin color, hair color, facial shape and other inherited characteristics.
However, it is nearly impossible to completely define varieties of human beings based exclusively upon exhibited physical characteristics (phenotypes). In fact, there are no criteria that are 100 percent accurate when it comes to defining race. This is simply because it is impossible to define non-overlapping physical subtypes within the Homo sapiens species.
Race (biology) and ethnicity) culture) may overlap, but one cannot predict a person’s ethnicity based upon physical characteristics. The differences between the two concepts have implications for the multiculturalism movement.
Multiculturalism refers to the acceptance and appreciation of multiple ethnic groups within a geographic area. By definition, multiculturalism is concerned with group human behavioral variation in culture - not biology. If we are interested in preserving and appreciating different cultural ways of life, we should strive to preserve and understand cultural patterns that are different form the majority within our own society and around the world.
Multiculturalism is a means of preserving and appreciating cultural practices that are different from one’s own. This is perhaps one of the most important concepts we can teach each other - the idea that “different” is not necessarily bad. in fact, different is interesting. Imagine if we were all one people and one culture, the world would certainly be quite a bit ore mundane if all of humanity consisted of one single ethnicity.
The same can be said about human
biology; what if we were all clones in terms of outward appearance? Anthropology
strives to understand, record, appreciate, preserve and explain the spice of
humanity - its variation, both cultural and biological.