What is the role of race, culture, ethnicity?

Question

What is the role of race, culture, ethnicity?

Answer 1

It's a way to using a person's physical appearance to identify them. Unfortunately, it only serves as a way to separate people into smaller groups.

Answer 2

In the context of physical anthropology, "race" is used to describe a subspecies which can be identified by some particular characteristic(s). The comparison with "breeds" of dogs is a good one. It is as valid to categorize "races" of people with big or small ears, or those whose urine smells funny after they've eaten asparagus, and those whose doesn't (!), as well as "races" of people with differently-coloured skin or who speak a particular language.

A simple way of describing "culture" is "the way of life of a group of people." It's a pretty all-encompassing concept, which is anthropology's ffundamental concept.

Ethnicity, as a cultural subset, is a concept introduced in the late 1950s as a way of talking around the issue of race. It was developed as a more accurate or sensitive way of speaking of the "Jewish race" or "Hispanic race".  

As you can see, race is not dependent on religion or language.