How do anthropologists see the concept of race?

Question

How do anthropologists see the concept of race? What is their position about the relation between race and skin color?

Answer 1

From an anthropological point of view, the idea of a race of humans is not supportable. There are no verifiable differences amongst people of different skin types. Also, genetic tests done on large groups of people support the idea that there has been much mixing between races.  

Answer 2

The fourth answer is probably not even an anthropologist, most likely just calls himself one. The First answer is absurd. He clearly has a flawed way of thinking, He might claim to be an anthropologist but simply... doesn't know how to think. I am not experienced at all in this field but I am interested in it. The third answer is your best bet.

To say there are no differences between races is ridiculous. Mixing of races? depends what he means. For a white person and a black person (or any given race) to bare children, they would look different in terms of skin colour and facial features. Didn't see any mixed races in Africa when the Europeans came across it did they now?

Answer 3

from an anthropologist point of view race is socially constructed and it isn't genetic or scientifically based at all.

race and skin color? i can't remember that... but i would imagine that an anthropologist would say that people come in all different shades of color and no two people of the same "race" are the same shade.  

Answer 4

Skin color alone is insufficient to determine race. There are a slew of physical traits associated with the various races.

Answer 5

As bogus.

Here's the American Anthropological Association's statement on race:

http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm

Answer 6

Anthropologists have a lot of different opinions on this.  

Many biological anthropologists will tell you that race is a viable concept because it expresses clusters of traits with meaningful adaptive consequences which differentiate major components of the range of human genotypes and phenotypes.  

Many cultural anthropologists will say that race is nothing more than a social construct which is used to distinguish between people arbitrarily, and usually in order to maintain or reinforce power structures that benefit one "race" over another.  

Here's my opinion:

*  "race", in common language, is a very loaded term with some pretty awful connotations.  

*  Anthropologists do not own "common language" and can not freely revise definitions to depoliticize them.

*  We could dispense with the term's political baggage (unless the political baggage is what we are interested in - so as Cornell West and others have said - cultural anthropologists might want to stop attacking the concept and start attacking the problems associated with it) by simply using another term to describe the cluster of traits that appear to be biologically significant.  

Saying that race doesn't exist can be misleading.  Clearly, it does exist in the minds of a lot of people.  Doesn't make sense to deny a social problem in order to attempt to understand it or confront it.

Until somebody can explain to me how ignoring something helps us solve problems that it causes, I am afraid I have to disagree with the majority of people on this forum who preach the party-line in social anthropology.