We’re being torn apart by something that is cultural, not biological

Your editor has argued from time to time that we should view differences in what people define as biological race as actually cultural in roots and use the term ethnic instead. While professing to be exposing discrimination, for example, the media reinforces the false science of race and contributes to our false definition of our cultural differences.  Here is a good summary of the science behind this matter from Wikipedia

Wikipedia – A race is a grouping of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into categories generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term was first used to refer to speakers of a common language and then to denote national affiliations. By the 17th century, the term began to refer to physical traits. Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partially based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning.

Social conceptions and groupings of races have varied over time, often involving folk taxonomies that define essential types of individuals based on perceived traits. Today, scientists consider such biological essentialism obsolete, and generally discourage racial explanations for collective differentiation in both physical and behavioral traits….

Modern scholarship views racial categories as socially constructed, that is, race is not intrinsic to human beings but rather an identity created, often by socially dominant groups, to establish meaning in a social context. Different cultures define different racial groups, often focused on the largest groups of social relevance, and these definitions can change over time.

• In South Africa, the Population Registration Act, 1950 recognized only White, Black, and Coloured, with Indians added later.
• The government of Myanmar recognizes eight "major national ethnic races".
• The Brazilian census classifies people into brancos (Whites), pardos (multiracial), pretos (Blacks), amarelos (Asians), and indigenous  though many people use different terms to identify themselves.
• The United States Census Bureau proposed but then withdrew plans to add a new category to classify Middle Eastern and North African peoples in the U.S. Census 2020, over a dispute over whether this classification should be considered a white ethnicity or a separate race.
• Legal definitions of whiteness in the United States used before the civil rights movement were often challenged for specific groups.
• Historical race concepts have included a wide variety of schemes to divide local or worldwide populations into races and sub-races….

The concept of race classification in physical anthropology lost credibility around the 1960s and is now considered untenable. A 2019 statement by the American Association of Physical Anthropologists declares:

“Race does not provide an accurate representation of human biological variation. It was never accurate in the past, and it remains inaccurate when referencing contemporary human populations. Humans are not divided biologically into distinct continental types or racial genetic clusters. Instead, the Western concept of race must be understood as a classification system that emerged from, and in support of, European colonialism, oppression, and discrimination”…

In short, instead of genes and DNA, think culture. After all Donald Trump, Pope Francis and the Beatles all have white skin... and how much does that tell you?.