You’re aware that race doesn’t mean “white” vs “black” right?
While obviously these systems were used to justify treating non-white races as being fundamentally inferior, it was also used against other groups (“proving” that the Irish and scots were predisposed to drunkenness, etc).
The idea of racism being purely a skin color concept is relatively recent. Look at the historic treatment of the Irish, welsh, and Scottish in Britain over the last few millennia - or Italians up until the the mid to early 1900s. The treatment of people from Eastern Europe, the polish, today.
All of these races can be distinguished genetically - or even through external features.
Similar discrimination occurs other countries among people with the same skin colour- I’m sure countries like China and Japan could point to “objective” measures like genetics that can be not related to negative aspects of groups they discriminate against.
While obviously these systems were used to justify treating non-white races as being fundamentally inferior, it was also used against other groups (“proving” that the Irish and scots were predisposed to drunkenness, etc).
The idea of racism being purely a skin color concept is relatively recent. Look at the historic treatment of the Irish, welsh, and Scottish in Britain over the last few millennia - or Italians up until the the mid to early 1900s. The treatment of people from Eastern Europe, the polish, today.
All of these races can be distinguished genetically - or even through external features.
Similar discrimination occurs other countries among people with the same skin colour- I’m sure countries like China and Japan could point to “objective” measures like genetics that can be not related to negative aspects of groups they discriminate against.