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Originally Posted by albania
Wasn't it almost up until the mid 20th century that there was such a thing as racial anthropology, and professionals telling people race does exist?
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Actually, it was closer to the turn of the century when Franz Boas came along and debunked the whole idea of race, basically turning the classical study of "anthropology" on its head and putting it on a very different track for the 20th century. (The Nazis turned back to old-school anthropology for justification of their extermination of "undesirables.")
Albania, you are right in that people are no longer studying race as "race." Sociologists study it as a socio-economic term, and that is why the question still exists on the US Census: what race are you? Anthropologists do not use the term at all. Biological anthropologists study ancestral DNA, clines, and genotypic/phenotypic differences, but they do not study race.
Now Ustwo, you didn't answer my question about what race I am, which I would still like to know. You are correct that race, as a "general descriptor" (in a social sense) exists, which is unfortunate... it will be a long time before humans are ready to let go of that particular taxonomy. But what you are talking about here:
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Originally Posted by Ustwo
Really if anything there are more races than the typical superficial ones, with less obvious subgroupings.
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... is correct, but it is not "race." It is clinal variation (which I've said for the 4th time on TFP). Experts in the field do not talk about these variations using the word "race," period. I'd expect the same from other educated people, though that may be hoping for too much.