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It is hard to deny the impact race and racism has on the lives of Black people. The process of unpacking this impact and healing from its trauma requires us to first unlearn some of what we have been taught about race. We are raised to believe that physical differences we see among groups of people can be attributed to a biological category of human diversity called race. Yet, research shows that the concept of race has very little scientific foundation in terms of biology and genetics, leading researchers to describe the older, more commonly held notions of this construct as “the myth of race.”
Genetics shows that 94% of human genetic variation is found within members of the same race, while 6% of this variation exists between races. Biologically, people from the same race differ more from each other than they do from people of other races. 2 people of African descent are biologically more similar to a person of European descent than they are to each other. The differences we see in skin colour, hair texture, etc. are a result of gradual, and continuous adaptations that occur in the human species as we move across geography and climate. They do not correspond to traits like intelligence, beauty, and/or ability. So, if race is not a biological fact, where did this myth come from?
The concept of race was invented during the late 16th century as part of the European expansion into the new World. The Europeans used craniometry to assert that Black people had smaller brains than Whites, and therefore, less intelligent. Pseudoscientific methods were used to create racial hierarchies that would justify three things: slavery, colonialism and the conquest of people that the Europeans defined as inferior. These philosophies and scientific methods provided the moral and intellectual legitimacy needed to start social practices that distribute wealth and value to the people at the top of the racial hierarchy, while oppressing and dehumanising those at the bottom. |
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Published on 08.07.2026 at 11:57 
