Racial categories are relative, situational constructs engendered by historical processes.

Evidence

The question is not whether men-in-general make perceptual distinctions between groups with different racial or ethnic characteristics, but rather, what are the specific conditions which make this form of distinction socially pertinent, historically active. What gives this abstract human potentiality its effectivity, as a concrete material force? — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 634 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Nevertheless, the second approach has rejected the “natural race” view in favor of the argument that racial categories are always socially constructed (Harding, 1993). Reflection on the World War II atrocities committed in the name of maintaining “racial purity” decreased the attractiveness of continuing to search for biological determinants of racial differences. Moreover, the “social race” defenders pointed out the immense cultural variation in systems of racial classification. The US had had a complex system of classifying people of African descent as quadroons, octoroons, and those legally counted as black because their ancestry gave them 1/32 “black blood.” In parts of the Caribbean class has shaped racial classification so that the richer one is, the whiter one is perceived to be. South Africa, Japan, and other cultures have their own systems of racial classification. Furthermore, the emergence of population genetics, as indicated, made it compelling to treat alike variation in human populations and in animal and plant populations. Purported “racial difference” is best understood on the model of classifying butterflies or petunias. By the 1960s this social race approach was well-established in biology and the social sciences. According to this view, racial prejudice, now deprived of its scientific grounds, should soon wither away. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1564 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

But the word “black” was never uttered. Why? No black people around? Lots of them, thousands and thousands of them. Black is not a question of pigmentation. The black I am talking about is a historical category, a political category, a cultural category. In our language, at certain historical moments, we have to use the signifier. We have to create an equivalence between how people look and what their histories are. Their histories are in the past, inscribed on their skin. But it is not because of their skin that they are black in their heads. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 232 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Historical conditions, not universal psychology, activate racial distinctions as social forces. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 634; Racial categories vary enormously across cultures and eras, revealing their social construction — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1564; Racial categories were administratively imposed rather than biologically fixed — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 216 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Historical conditions, not universal psychology, activate racial distinctions as social forces. #corroborates (1.00) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 634
• Racial categories vary enormously across cultures and eras, revealing their social construction #corroborates (1.00) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1564
• Race categories are historical and political, not pigment-based #corroborates (0.95) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 232
• Racial categories were administratively imposed rather than biologically fixed #qualifies (0.85) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 216
• State apparatuses actively fashion and reify racial categories rather than merely reflect them #expands (0.80)
• Racial categories are flexible instruments that can be repurposed for new politics #expands (0.80)
• Race and ethnicity are socially constructed rather than natural categories. #corroborates (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 104