Edit: this question has been answered now. Thank you to everyone who took the time to help me understand.
the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of colour.
Okay… But we can take a DNA test and get our ancestry, telling us what percentage of what races make up our overall ethnicity. So how is race a social construct and not a biological feature, when we have a scientific method to determine our race? This part of the philosophy has been bothering me ever since I read it, and I’ve been hesitant to ask because of how offensive people get when you question this system.
You’re conflating a few different concepts, and misunderstanding how DNA tests work. …And the only thing any of this has to do with CRT is that these questions are a symptom of it.
Race, ancestry, and ethnicity are not synonyms.
Race is “A group of people identified as distinct from other groups because of supposed physical or genetic traits shared by the group. Most biologists and anthropologists do not recognize race as a biologically valid classification, in part because there is more genetic variation within groups than between them.” (American Heritage)
Ethnicity refers to “people sharing a common cultural or national heritage and often sharing a common language or religion.” (American Heritage)
Ancestry is biological lineage.
DNA tests approximate the location on the globe (overlaid with national borders) where your ancestors lived at some point in time. They do this by taking DNA samples of people from all around the world, mapping that with human migration patterns, and comparing your DNA to that data pool to determine the statistical likelihood that you’re ancestors lived in a certain place within a certain time period in human history.
DNA tests do not determine race (social classification) or ethnicity (cultural classification). DNA tests can determine some physical traits, but not everyone with the same traits belong to what we might consider the same race. And not everyone who considers themselves to be of the same race have the same DNA.
There is no biological definition for the word “race”.
Just nitpicking, but there is a biological definition of race (albeit informal), which you quote the definition of. it’s just that it cant be applied to humans because (as your quote mentions) there tends to be greater variation from within human “races” than there is between some “races”.
There’s also the issue that there’s no “boundary” or distinction between the human “races”, and an actual race would need to be distinct from the rest of the specie population in order to be recognized as an actual race.
Thanks for the explanation.