In the first set of readings race is defined as emerging from the capitalist and colonist experiences of Europeans who sought to justify their dominance and control foreign resources, land and people. The concept of race defined individuals according to physical characteristics and implied a certain disposition and character that would be unchangeable for the individual and their descendants.
The “science” behind race though proved to be shaky and ever changing based on individual circumstances and a non-uniform number of classifications across the world. Some societies, such as the US used the “one drop rule” which classified a person with any African ancestry as black, while the South African government under Apartheid would classify mixed race individuals as colored. Some racial theorists would also break down groups even further and consider the white race to actually be a collection of races.
This disparity in definitions and classifications along with a lack of biological evidence in favor of a biological differential between the popular concepts of race led modern scientists to discard the classification in the physical sciences but the concept lives on in the social sciences. The beliefs people still hold about race and its implications continue to affect modern societies despite its lack of scientific grounding.