Abstract
Bucking previous trends, more and more researchers have been coming to endorse the proposition that race is real. Realist constructivists maintain that our practices’ astoundingly significant consequences compel us to recognize that race has a social reality. As the saying goes, try telling a black person trying to hail a cab that race isn’t real.1 It’s real enough for discrimination, for reduced or privileged access to health care and education and car loans, and for being the glue that bonds identities. And that, say constructivists, is real enough to be real. At the same time, biological racial realism has also mounted a comeback lately. Fascinating new scientific data and complementary theoretical architecture, along with a commitment to relegating racist science to the past, have jointly provided powerful support for the doctrine that races are, very roughly, biologically real breeding populations.
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© 2010 Joshua Glasgow
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Glasgow, J. (2010). Another Look at the Reality of Race, By Which I Mean Race. In: Hazlett, A. (eds) New Waves in Metaphysics. New Waves in Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230297425_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230297425_4
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