We then briefly discuss the federal government’s racial and ethnic categories for data collection (which are examined more fully in Chapter 10) and highlight the ambiguities that complicate the definition and measurement of race. Next, we present background on the history and meaning of race (and ethnicity) in the United States. In this chapter, we first summarize biological and social concepts of race. Therefore, we only briefly describe ways in which race (and ethnicity) may be defined, rather than attempting an in-depth analysis. In fact, there is little consensus on what race actually means (Alba, 1992 for discussions on the meaning of race, see Anderson and Fienberg, 2000 Appiah, 1992 Fredrickson, 2002 Jones, 1997 Loury, 2002 Omi, 2001 Winant, 2001). The focus on measuring racial discrimination in this report raises an initial question of “What is race?” Defining race is a task far more complex than can be accomplished in this chapter.
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