The word ‘raza’ originally meant blemish or defect, not biological stock

Evidence

During the Inquisition, the term ”raza” meant ”blemishes” or ”defects”— for example, in the phrase ”sin raza de judios/moros (with no Jewish/Moorish blemish on their pedigree)” used in blood-purification certificates in the 1500s (L. P. Harvey 2005, 7, fn. 4). Throughout the Inquisition, when this racial logic of blackness was propagated to give meaning to suspicions not easily con- firmed by visible characteristics, the issue of religious ”passing” was of utmost concern. Religious passing came to be identified racially through the logic of darkening in which Moors were associated with darker skin color despite their actual appearance, and by relying on other kinds of available evidence, such as occupation, location of residence, dress, class and rank, and, for men during Inquisition examinations and ”religious” riots, the foreskin. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 164

Categorization

• DEFINE: Etymology of ‘raza’ as blemish/defect in blood-purity certificates — a genuinely surprising origin for the modern race concept.
• SEED: An essay on how the modern concept of race traces through the Inquisition’s suspicion of covert religious practice, and how race was constructed from evidence of behavior (occupation, residence, dress) rather than visible phenotype.
• XREF: Directly contradicts the modern assumption that race is about visible phenotype; connects to the Inquisition-era construction of difference from behavior — relevant to passing-literature and to contemporary surveillance of populations.