If you still think “race” when you think of a person’s skin color, your way thinking is almost 300 years out of date. In 1735, (290 years ago), Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish Biologist, divided humanity into four races largely by complexion.
- Europeans = white
- Africans = black
- Asians = yellow
- Native Americans = red
Here’s the problem: his classifications have been proven wrong time and time again, and society has never gotten rid of them.
There is only one race: The human race, and within it we carry extraordinary diversity.
We are not different races. We are of different complexions.
Complexion is defined as “the natural colour, texture, and appearance of a person’s skin, especially of the face“.
So my mission, starting now, is to end racism – and the best way I know how is to finally do what should have been done 290 years ago: bury Carl Linnaeus’s classifications for humans based on complexion once and for all.
And we’ll start with calling him out for what he was – the father of racial science.
In 1735, when he published Systema Naturae, he didn’t just classify human beings. He attached temperaments and value judgments, and as a European intellectual in a colonial era, while he was obsessed with classifying things, he also reflected the stereotypes and hierarchies of the era of colonialism and transatlantic slavery, where Europeans at the top, others ranked lower.
These are his classifications:
- Homo Europaeus (white, governed by laws)
- Homo Afer (black, governed by caprice)
- Homo Asiaticus (yellow, governed by opinion)
- Homo Americanus (red, governed by custom)
What his Systema Naturae did was provide a scientific veneer, a covering, for ideas that were already being used in colonialism and slavery, and it gave a “natural order” justification to the inequalities Europeans had been enforcing since the 1600s.
Linnaeus’ system may not have caused slavery, but it institutionalized race-thinking and gave it a framework that politicians, economists, and slaveholders could lean on.
By the late 1700s and 1800s, his taxonomy fed directly into so-called “scientific racism,” which rationalized slavery, colonial exploitation, and segregation as being natural.
It was this kind of thinking Darwin would use 124 years later in his work, Origin of the Species, (full title: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life).
It was this kind of thinking that Hitler would then use, starting in 1933 during the Holocaust and the Nazi Medical Trials to exterminate Jewish people.
It’s this kind of thinking that Margaret Sanger would use, publishing and promoting Nazi propaganda about race and eugenics, as the basis to open abortion clinics in and around non-white communities of color.
And it’s this kind of thinking that has infiltrated almost every level of society from politics and economics, to social systems and even medicine.
Many in our medical industry still believe that:
- Black patients feel less pain, or have thicker skin/nerve endings.
- Black patients naturally have higher muscle mass and therefore higher kidney function.
- Black and Asian patients have inherently lower lung capacity than whites.
- Rashes, bruising, jaundice, cyanosis (oxygen loss) show up the same way on all skin tones.
- Black patients are biologically predisposed to hypertension.
- Black women’s bodies are “naturally” higher risk in childbirth.
For the record: ALL OF THOSE ARE FALSE!
Carl Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae has been at the heart of scientific racism for almost 300 years, and it has been at the heart of justifying racism based on complexion in all of it’s forms, and it has been used to justify murders, genocides, and countless atrocities and injustices throughout history.
And it remains pervasive and problematic almost 300 years later, even though it’s been proven wrong over and over again, because those who peddle hate, and those who benefit from the division are able to justify it with faux science.
It’s time for Systema Naturae to die… and I’m recruiting you to help me.
How We Should Classify Fellow Human Beings (Update)
When I first started sharing my idea about ending Systema Naturae, there were some specific questions that I had to address, because, if we weren’t saying “race” anymore, what is the right way to answer? So, here are some questions and answers I felt were necessary to share, and how I answered them.
Question: But didn’t black people in the US create a new race? They gained culture and community over shared experiences during slavery, Jim Crow, etc. That collectivism is the foundation of the race, something White people in the US lack.
Answer: A black culture, a black heritage, not a black race.
Question: Do you consider American people who are descendants of slaves racially African then?
Answer: No. I consider them ethnically African. Race is a false classification when applied to complexion (skin color).
Question: How then would you classify what we consider as mixed race?
Answer: I consider them ethnically mixed.
Question: Doesn’t Rh negative blood prove that different humans are different species?
Answer: Rh negative blood indicates geographic and ethnic distribution patterns, not separate races. While blood types vary by ancestry, genetic evidence proves that humans are one species, with clinal variation, not discrete racial categories.
Question: So, there’s no such thing as an “interracial marriage” or “interracial relationship”?
Answer: Nope. We have intraracial marriages and relationships, meaning two people of the same race (human) but with different complexions (color).
Question: What would you say to people who say things like “we are one species, and within that species there are different races?”
Answer: I would say that we are one species, and within that species this is one race with different ethnicities.
Your Mission (Should You Choose To Accept It)
If you’d like to help me on my journey to end Systema Naturae, (removing the scientific justification for color-based racism), there’s how.
1. Share this post on social media. The goal here is to ultimately inform the masses that race and complexion are not interchangeable, and that there is only one race – the human race.
Whether you share this post, made a video, or even create your own blog post, (you have my permission to copy my work on this post), doesn’t matter to me, as long as the word spreads and the message becomes common knowledge.
2. Challenge color-based racism when you see it. I’m not talking about starting debates or fights online, or trolling and bullying others. The goal is to combat hate, not perpetuate it, (you can’t fight hate with hate).
So, whenever you see someone sharing or espousing ideas that perpetuate or promote racism based on complexion, especially in your own circles, challenge it. Let them know that at the correct word is complexion and we are not different races. Point back to this post if they need evidence of that, (there is a growing list of proof at the end of this article).
This second one is important, because some messages are better received by people when it’s coming from their peers and people they know, like, and trust. I could scream, “there’s only one race: the human race,” until I’m blue in the face, but some people will only receive it when it’s from someone they know.
That’s just human nature.
3. Pitch In. I am just one person on a mission, and there’s only so much I can do. If you’d like to do more, then you are welcome to join me. I would love to hear your ideas. If you have a platform, I would love to collaborate with you. I’m open to different ideas, and I’m willing to work with anyone who’s genuine about stopping racism.
So, leave a comment below, or follow me on my socials and DM me. The links are up top.
Scientific Evidence Against Color-Based Racism
1. Genetic Similarity of All Humans
- Evidence: The Human Genome Project (2003) found that all humans share 99.9% of their DNA.
- Takeaway: Genetic differences within any so-called “race” are often greater than differences between races.
2. No Biological Basis for Racial Categories
- Evidence: The American Association of Physical Anthropologists (1996 statement) and the American Anthropological Association (1998 statement) both declared that “race” is a social construct, not a biological reality.
- Takeaway: Skin color is just one trait – not a marker of separate human subspecies.
3. Skin Color = Adaptation, Not Race
- Evidence: Skin pigmentation is controlled by a handful of genes (especially MC1R, SLC24A5, SLC45A2) that regulate melanin production.
- Takeaway: Variation in complexion is an evolutionary response to sun exposure and vitamin D synthesis – not a separate race.
4. Clinal Variation
- Evidence: Human traits (height, skin color, nose shape, hair texture) vary gradually across geography in “clines,” not in hard racial boundaries.
- Takeaway: There are no sharp biological divisions between populations, only gradual shifts.
5. Blood Types and Traits Cross Racial Lines
- Evidence: Traits like blood type distribution, lactose tolerance, or sickle-cell trait are spread by ancestry and geography, not “race.”
- Takeaway: A Black person and a white person can share the same blood type, while two white people may have completely different ones.
6. Genomic Mapping of Populations
- Evidence: Modern genetic studies (e.g., Lewontin, 1972; Rosenberg et al., 2002) show that about 85-90% of genetic variation is within local populations, not between “races.”
- Takeaway: Most differences are individual, not racial.
7. Medical Failures of Race-Based Assumptions
- Evidence:
– Kidney function (eGFR adjustment) artificially raised scores for Black patients, delaying treatment.
– Spirometry “race corrections” misdiagnosed lung capacity.
– Pain myths caused undertreatment in ERs.
- Takeaway: Race-based assumptions harm patients and obscure real ancestry/environmental factors.
8. Forensic Anthropology Backlash
- Evidence: Forensic scientists can sometimes guess ancestry from bones, but even experts acknowledge high overlap and error. Increasingly, they warn that racial categories in forensics are statistical probabilities, not biological truths.
- Takeaway: Even in fields where “race” was once treated as useful, the scientific consensus now treats it as misleading.
Evidence List: Proof That Color-Based Racism Is a Lie
- The Apportionment of Human Diversity (Richard Lewontin, 1972) | Most human genetic variation (~ 85%) is within so-called “races,” only a small portion between “races.” Shows racial categories have almost no genetic/taxonomic significance. Source
- “Race and genetics versus ‘race’ in genetics: A systematic review” (Duello, 2021) | Reinforces that “race” in much scientific research is misused; genetic variation is continuous; race is socially constructed. Source
- “Race: How the Post-Genomic Era Has Unmasked a Misconception Promoted by Healthcare” (D. Schaare et al., 2023) | In post-genomic science, the old race categories are revealed to have no firm biological basis; what matters more is ancestry, environment, gene flow. Source
- Misunderstanding of race as biology (HL Lujan et al., 2024) | Documents that genetic differences are far larger within racial groups than between them; shows harm when race is treated as biology. Source
- “The social, economic, political, and genetic value of race and ethnicity” (TB Mersha, 2020) | Argues that there is no valid genetic basis for traditional race/ethnicity categories; differences in health outcomes derive from social/historical causes (racism, inequities), not innate skin color biology. Source
- AABA (American Association of Biological Anthropologists) Statement on Race & Racism | Official statement: race does not accurately map onto human biological variation; skin color etc. do not align with discrete genetic clusters. Source
- “Why Humans Do Not Have Biological Races” (LabXchange/educational resource) | Straight-forward statement: there are no “biological races” in humans; race is myth in biology though real in social terms. Source
- “Researchers Need to Rethink … How and Why Race/Ethnicity/Ancestry Labels are Used” (National Academies, 2023) | Science & medicine communities being urged to stop using “race” as a proxy for genetic variation; because it misleads and re-entrenches false ideas. Source
- “Race Is Real, But It’s Not Genetic” (Alan Goodman, Sapiens) | Emphasizes that while race is real socially, it has no genetic foundation; debunks myths around medical and biological assumptions tied to race. Source
- The Jena Declaration (2019) | Declaration by scientists rejecting the idea of human biological races; says racial categories are arbitrary and superficial. Source
- The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea (Robert Wald Sussman, 2014) | Historical survey that shows race was never scientifically valid; how scientific racism persisted despite evidence. Source
