The argument that race is a genetic predisposition is an old one, and certainly an important one, as it has been practiced among governments and other such institutions for centuries. This argument however, leads to unwanted implications of genetic inequality between the races that we have learned is simply not the case. There are no inherent differences between individual races that aren't arbitrarily constructed by society. In fact, it seems apparent that there are more variations in appearance and personality within a single race than there are cross-culturally.
Here, we will see that without the arbitrary language that defines and constructs racial differences, society would not be able to see any differences at all. Based upon the ideas set forth in postcolonial and postmodern theory, we will surmise that race is simply a social construct, rather than an inherent basis for biological conclusions. In other words, there is nothing inherently "black" about the social construct of "black"; there is nothing inherently "Asian" in the social construct "Asian", and so forth.
The arguments supporting the opposite thesisùthat race is most certainly a biological constructùare in a large percentage, racist, or white supremacist. We have seen this in history. During the second World War, members of the Nazi party whom supposed themselves as academics, attempted to prove that members of the "Arian" race were smarter, stronger or inherently more powerful than members of other races. We have since come to understand that this is in fact, wrong. However, this is not where this tradition of scientific racism began.
"Scientific studies of race before Darwin tended to fall into two general schools of thought, monogeny and polygeny, both of which foregrounded the question of racial origins," (Somerville, 22). The theory of monogeny argued that all of the "races" were members of the same species, and had descended from a common an...