When Does Race Matter?

Public consciousness of race in American society has been greatly heightened over the past few years with the revelation of black deaths during police actions, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, and by various utterances, as well as policies against Mexicans and other immigrant groups by the current US President. The importance of race has long been observed by social epidemiologists studying wide disparities in health among race groups in the USA (US CDC, 2013). A key component of these disparities, and likely on the causal pathway between race and health, are the large and widening disparities in income, wealth, and educational attainment among racial groups, leading to unequal opportunities for high-quality employment (Burgard and Lin, 2013). At the same time, there is wide consensus among biologists and geneticists that race has little, if any biological importance (Lee et al., 2008). For instance, the degree of inter-individual variability in genotypes vastly outweighs variability between groups of humans (Race Ethnicity and Genetics Working Group, 2005). As a result, the concept of race is now thought of as a 'social construction,' that is, a set of norms and assumptions largely agreed upon by a population. The social construction of race is affirmed by the fact that the definition of race changes over time and varies by country. For instance, the US defines race (White, Black, Asian, American Indian, Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander) and ethnicity (Hispanic, non-Hispanic) separately (NIH, 2001), South Africa defines race using historical legacies (African, Asian, Coloured, White), and France has long required "colour-blind" or race-neutral policies and practices.