So… where did this whole race thing come from?

We talk about race like it’s natural. Like it’s always been there, coded into our blood. But race—what we think it is, what it means, and how it divides—isn’t rooted in biology. It’s rooted in power.

The concept of race as we know it wasn’t passed down through genetics. It was constructed—by lawmakers, landowners, scientists, colonizers. And like most systems built by humans, it served those in control. To understand race today, we have to go back. Not just to slavery or segregation, but to the original decision to turn people into categories.

Long before the transatlantic slave trade, people had already started drawing lines. But those lines weren’t originally about skin color. In 15th century Spain, Jewish converts to Christianity were targeted not just for their beliefs—but for their bloodlines. Laws like the Sentencia-Estatuto of 1449 excluded those who couldn’t prove generations of “pure” Christian ancestry from public life. This wasn’t simply religious discrimination—it was proto-racism, focused on ancestry and immutable traits.

From there, the idea metastasized. If your lineage made you inferior, that inferiority could be documented, legislated, enforced.

Fast forward to the 18th century. Science was booming. So was classification. Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist, created categories not just for plants—but for humans. Homo sapiens europaeus. H. asiaticus. H. africanus. It seemed objective, even rational. But built into these labels were assumptions about behavior, intellect, even morality.

Later, German scholar Johann Friedrich Blumenbach added his own twist: the idea of the “Caucasian” race, supposedly based on a beautiful skull from Georgia. Suddenly, whiteness wasn’t just a description. It was aesthetic. Idealized. Placed quietly but firmly at the top. These weren’t fringe theories. They became the scaffolding for how empires justified domination. The science wasn’t neutral—it was narrative. A convenient one.

It’s easy to forget: the idea of different “races” wasn’t just about noticing difference. It was about ranking people. By the 18th century, European colonists in the Americas weren’t just enslaving Africans or displacing Native peoples—they were building a logic to explain it. That logic had a neat formula: White = human = deserving of rights. Others = less-than = property, threat, or both.

Thomas Jefferson, in Notes on the State of Virginia, made it explicit. He didn’t just acknowledge prejudice. He justified it. Race, in his mind, wasn’t just a difference—it was destiny. So by the time America started defining itself as a new, free nation, race had already been baked into its foundation.

Here’s something that disrupts the timeline: Whiteness wasn’t fixed. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Irish were often racialized by the English. They were “savage.” “Lazy.” Compared to Africans and Indigenous Americans in colonial literature. In the U.S., they were sometimes called “smoked Irish” or “Negroes turned inside out.”

But over time, Irish Americans—especially those who distanced themselves from Black Americans—were allowed into the category of Whiteness. They gained access to jobs, housing, and power. Their skin didn’t change. Their status did. This tells us something crucial: race wasn’t a biological truth. It was a gate. And it could open or close depending on what society needed to justify.

Why African slavery was different:

Enslavement had existed before. But in America, it took a unique turn: it was explicitly racial.

Africans were seen as biologically suited to enslavement—strong enough to labor, but too “primitive” to govern. Native Americans were enslaved too, but many died from disease or escaped due to their knowledge of the land. Africans, unfamiliar with the terrain and lacking local networks, were easier to trap. This wasn’t happenstance. It was structural. Enslaving someone required rationalization. Race was that rationalization.

In the 19th century, scientific racism hit its stride. Phrenology. Craniometry. IQ testing. Each framed as neutral. Each reinforcing the same story: that people of European descent were smarter, more civilized, more evolved.

Meanwhile, colonial powers used this “evidence” to claim dominion over entire continents. Africa was carved up. Asia was divided. Australia was invaded. Race provided the moral permission to rule, to exploit, to erase. The cruelty wasn’t a glitch. It was the point.

When we think of racism, we often think of American slavery. But race-fueled violence happened across continents. The Holocaust was one of the most chilling expressions of racial pseudoscience—where the concept of an “Aryan” race became state policy. Jews, Roma, Slavs, and others were targeted not just for religion or politics, but for their blood. Their features. Their supposed genetic corruption.

The Nazis didn’t invent racial purity—they borrowed it. From the same systems used to justify colonialism, segregation, and eugenics in the US and Britain. The horror was more extreme. The logic was familiar.

What race still hides:

The problem is — once you create a hierarchy, you don’t need to say it out loud. It shows up in who gets followed in stores. Who gets hired. Whose accent gets mocked. Who gets deported. Who gets shot. Today, we pretend race is obvious. Black, White, Asian, Latino. But where do Arab Americans fit? Or Afro-Latinos? Or South Asians in the UK? The borders shift. The power doesn’t.

And even though modern genetics confirms that there’s more variation within “racial groups” than between them, race continues to shape housing policy, policing, healthcare, education, and citizenship. Not because it’s real in our DNA. But because it’s real in our systems.

Here’s the cultural tension: we know race isn’t real. And yet it defines so much of our reality. It shows up in our census forms. Our dating apps. Our algorithms. It tells us who’s “normal,” who’s “exotic,” who’s “dangerous.” We talk about diversity as if we’re solving a math problem. But race isn’t arithmetic. It’s architecture. Invisible, but weight-bearing. Built into laws, borders, and habits. And like all architecture, it can be redesigned. But not without dismantling parts of what’s already standing.

So… can we end race?

Some thinkers say we should move beyond race altogether. Let it go. Pretend it never mattered. But others argue: we can’t fix what we won’t name. Ignoring race doesn’t make racism disappear—it just makes it harder to track.

People still experience discrimination. Still get profiled. Still get killed. So we name race not to keep it alive—but to trace the damage it’s done. You don’t stop a lie by pretending no one ever believed it. You stop it by telling the truth.

Ending race as a category requires more than optimism. It demands systemic reckoning: reparations, policy reform, new language. If we want to dismantle racial hierarchies, we can’t skip over the institutions that built them. Race was never neutral. It was never just a label. It was a design choice—and one that still shapes who gets safe housing, equal care, or a second chance. So maybe the real question isn’t “Can we end race?” but “Are we ready to end the systems that made it matter?”

Race wasn’t born. It was built. And like any system built by humans, it can be questioned. It can be unlearned. It can be redesigned. But that means doing more than saying “we’re all human.” It means asking: Who does this category serve? Who gets erased by it? Who gets harmed when we stay silent? The story of race is still being written. And if we want to change how it ends, we need to understand how it began.