Races Link between Complexion, Language Proficiency Essay

Races Link between Complexion, Language Proficiency - Essay Example In its most common form, race, as a concept, is described by referring to the biological characteristics of a specific social group: for example, reference can be made to ‘skin color, eye shape or hair texture’ (Kubota and Lin 2008, p.2). However, the dependency of race on the above criteria is not quite strong. In fact, through scientific research similarities have been identified among people in regard to their biological characteristics; these similarities are often at high level leading certain scientists to support the view that ‘races do not exist’ (Kubota and Lin 2008, p.2). Still, it seems that genes of populations are not identical. This fact has led to the assumption that the concept of race could be explained more effectively by referring to the ‘genetic characteristics of populations’ (Kubota and Lin 2008, p.2). Moreover, other approaches for explaining the uniqueness of race cannot be rejected; reference can be made, for example, to the cultural and social traditions of populations or to the explanations developed by different groups of populations in regard to critical social problems (Kubota and Lin 2008). Language has been also found to be an important criterion for justifying the categorization of people in races (Cole and Graham 2012). In addition, race is commonly used for describing the genetic characteristics of large group of populations, such as nations (Daniels 2013); in this context, race can be considered as related to other concepts, such as nationality (Daniels 2013). In other words, race is a concept that can be interpreted using different criteria. In this way, the specific concept could lead to severe social conflicts, a view promoted mostly in the context of the neo-Marxism (Kubota and Lin 2008). For avoiding such risk the use of other, similar, concepts, such as racialization and racism is suggested especially when having to develop