The Difference Between Race, Ethnicity, and Culture

Judging by the comments people post online, it’s hard to determine if people are unaware, oblivious, naive, willfully ignorant or just plain dumb when it comes to a lot of topics that don’t directly involve celebrity beef, gossip, and consumerism. You would think with all this free access to information in 2019 that people wouldn’t be so blatantly misinformed and seemingly misguided yet, here we are. Specifically, when it comes to matters of race, ethnicity, and culture, do you know and understand the difference?

Race, by definition, pertains to the social categorization of humankind, according to one’s physical characteristics, language, culture, history or ethnic grouping. The terms race and ethnicity are commonly misunderstood to be one and the same when, in fact, the concept of race derived from the historical practices of oppression, slavery, and domination of other people. From a scientific standpoint, there is, in fact only one race, the human race. Subcategories such as ethnicity and culture are used to further define or separate the distinctions between individuals. 

Culture is the classification of the behaviors, attitudes, customs, rituals, and achievements of people within a particular ethnic group. 

Saying all of that to say this, we are all individual, unique members of humankind with no inherent right to authority and dominion over another. Let’s stop with the stereotypes used to further divide us and appreciate all of the unique variances we each possess. This world is made better by the total inclusion and acceptance of every nuance that makes us different as much as it proves us to be alike.