Is Race Simply a Social Construct?
Under the pervasive influence of cultural norms which are designed to stabilize and legitimize multiracial societies, most people have come to understand race solely in terms of the superficial differences in appearance that distinguish human subgroups. By ignoring or minimizing racial differences, and by denigrating the concept of race, people can be led to believe that race is not meaningful, that the concept of race is chimerical and without substance, and that most of our ideas about race are in fact only social constructs. The aim of propagating this view of race is clear. Our well intentioned social engineers, civil authorities, and even the average citizen, desire to promote civility and good relations between the races in multiracial societies. They want to stress our similarities, minimize our differences, and emphasize how much human subgroups (races) have in common as a way of promoting stability under a form of social organization that is inherently unstable. As a result of
