When anthropologists say race is "socially constructed" many think this means it's purely imaginary & has no physical correlates. They scoff because they can *see* racial differences. Concept might be clearer if we said that race is a "folk taxonomy". 1/2
It's more articulate terminology but people generally aren't scoffing because they don't understand what you're saying. They scoff because they think a choice of words like this shows a desire to side-step questions and obfuscate.
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There's a bit of a mix-up between a genuine desire to know what physical/mental attributes are nature vs nurture, and people's desire to probabilistically ascribe these to 'groupings that they can see'.
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I've explained myself badly. It won't be enough to change the terminology if it still seems like you're /dodging/ 'something that they can see with their eyes'. Needs to engage them in nature/nurture debate, while pointing out science doesn't work with muddily defined groups.
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