Race can be defined as a "Euro-American folk concept" (Green, 1982). "Although
all peoples have apparently developed methods of classifying those considered
dissimilar from themselves, the belief that humankind could be hierarchically
divided into distinct white, yellow, red, and black-skinned ‘races', was born
and nourished in colonial Europe" (Kallen, 1982). In the Americas, this belief
system, was institutionalized by the practice of slavery and by various forms
of discriminatory or preferential treatment of identifiable groups. Despite
recently coming into disrepute as lacking any scientific basis, the concept of
race remains an integral part of the North American belief system"
(Christensen, 1995).
