[dark_lord]

Technically, there ain't no such thing as "race".

There is greater genetic variation within a "race" than there is between "races".

If a bunch of alien conquerors took over and only saw in the infrared light frequencies, they wouldn't have clue what the heck a racist would be talking about.

[John H K]

Eh, this is a much debated subject, but I think the "there's no race at all" folks have gone overboard, and it is not a view shared by all academics and ethnologists.

Forensic pathologists when called to examine a murder victim will skeletally determine whether they're Caucasian, Mongoloid, or Negroid, and they'll turn out to be right every time. If there's "no race at all" they'd be wrong most of the time.

You're correct that skin color is the weakest determinant, however.

People use race far too often incorrectly though, and the article is correct that Hispanic is NOT a race.

Actually, on Census forms this past census, the "are you Hispanic" question was TOTALLY separate from the ethnic origin question, in recognition of this.

The other thing people forget though, is that Arabs, Persians, Pakistanis, Indians, Afghanis, (Well, some exceptions with Afghanis in the case of the Hazara, who are Asian) are ALL Caucasian. If Yassir Arafat's or Osama Bin Laden's or Saddam Hussein's skeleton was found in Central Park, a pathologist would proclaim the skeleton "Caucasian".

There are three races, though most count Amerindians as a 4th race, I believe, and some have Aboriginal Australians as a 5th.

There's then the concept of "Subraces" which is less widely accepted, but again Arabs, etc. don't even count as one of those; they fall in the "Mediterranean" subrace along with Jews, Greeks, Most Italians, and so on and so forth.

Which is why every "Racial Profiling" thread on FR has been horribly misnamed.

People like to kid themselves that Arabs are more obviously identifiable than they are.