When scientists say (accurately) that “race doesn’t exist,” they are speaking in genetic and narrow pedantic terms. They are correct in (nearly) all ways that matter in their constrained and socially-blinkered lane.

However, when scientists castigate people for believing in race, the average person is not thinking in genetic or any cogent scientific terms at all, so this is a useless and counterproductive method of pushing back against the idea of race.

To the average non-scientist, race is very, very real and showing them a spreadsheet or a karyotype won’t convince them otherwise — quite the opposite! Assaulting people with data has already been shown to be a terrible, worthless strategy so I am puzzled that is being attempted so often and so persistently. And people are correct to believe in race. Social constructions, after all, are quite real as I argued here recently.

If you don’t think the idea of race is real, if I had dark skin and were waving a gun around on Main Street, how likely is it that some cop would shoot me? Nearly 100%. If I were white (which I am), how likely do you think it is? Much less so, of course.

Don’t try to condescendingly convince people race isn’t real just because it’s “only” a social construct. They know better than the scientists that in all the ways that matter, race is real.