Quote Originally Posted by Thorne View Post
This is all very nice and politically correct, but face it, people: there are differences between ethnic groups, whether you call them races or not. For lack of a better term, I'll use the term 'race' here.
I'd use the term 'race' to signify ethnic differences if it didn't already mean something else scientifically which makes a nonsense of trying to describe differences between us this way. Might as well say 'human' and sub-human.'

Biologically speaking, there are fundamental structural differences between the Caucasian, Negroid and Mongoloid races. I'm not certain, but there may also be structural variations between, say, Chinese, Japanese, American Indians, etc. of the Mongoloid races. And I'm not sure if the Middle East groups constitute a structurally different group. But the fact is, such structural differences are there.
Sure, and if we all stuck to our own and only interbred like with like we'd end up with different species. But humans mix, throughout history, all over the world. Differences are fluid, not set! And just because there are variations in ethnic types does not mean we are different races.

This is not a cultural issue, of course. Not one of semantics, or vocabulary. This is a biological truth, whether people like it or not. Contrary to poetic license, we are not all the same under the skin.
I disagree. It's a scientific, semantic, cultural and moral issue. Using the term 'race' to describe ethnic differences encourages those with the advantages to view those different from themselves as lesser, a different category of human almost, and inhumanely castigates the disadvantaged.