Races

The issue of races is different in the Ill Bethisad than it is *here*. Due to the much smaller importance of slavery and less violent colonialism, racism and therefore allegiations of racism are generally much less common. This, however, can be said about such forms of racism which considers the other races to be inferior. However, the general division of the humanity to races was historically more prominent in Ill Bethisad; due to less pressure with racist allegations, such viewpoints continues to exist under a science known as Raceology. Raceology, however, changed significantly during the 20th century and now it is basically the Ill Bethisad version of genetics (subscience known as "Natural Raceology") and anthropology ("Historical Raceology"). As such, currently the views to the human races are more complex than they were before; however, the understanding of races as they were defined by the raceologists of early 20th century is common among the usual people. The terms "whites", "blacks" and such generally fell from public use by the early 20th century due to the criticism for such terms by these raceologists; instead, races became more defined by the place of origin rather than color of skin.

Races

The commonly recognised human races:

• European race
  • Baltic subrace (Scandinavians, Estonians - palest skin and white hair; the name comes from the fact that most of these people inhabits the surroundings of the Baltic Sea)
  • Central subrace (most of the Europeans, darker than the Baltic race)
  • Indomediterranean subrace (darkest skin; northern Indians and some Arabs)

• Eastern race
  • Asian subrace (also known as Sinomongolian subrace, but this term is falling out of use due to the protest of Korean, Tibetan and other nationalities, which as well falls into the Asian subrace)
  • Japanese subrace
  • Indochinese subrace (Southeast Asia)
  • American subrace (Amerindians)
  • Transcaspian subrace (Central Asia)
  • Pacific subrace (Polynesians)

• African race
  • Ethiopian subrace (Somalis, Ethiopians)
  • Subsaharran subrace
  • Namib subrace (Hottentots)
  • Kongo subrace (Pygmies)
  • Madagascarian subrace (Malagasys)

• Austral race
  • Dravidian subrace (Tamils and other nearby nationalities)
  • Australian subrace (Aboriginal Australians)

Eastern and European races together makes the Northern superrace, while the African and Austral races makes the Southern superrace. In general, some of the subraces appeared due to the fusion of other subraces historically (such as Ethiopian subrace, which appeared through the fusion of subsaharran and indomediterranean subraces), but according to the raceological tradition they falls under the category of one race still rather than two races. Traditional race names also exists, such as Afroes in America, but they are used mostly for unofficial purposes.

The subrace is further subdivided by the raceologists into "ethnicities". Thus, ethnicity means a genetical subdivision of race rather than a self-defined (based on language, religion, culture, etc.) group of people. Therefore, some groups speaking different languages due to large ammount of intermarriages in the past or same descent can be considered to be part of the same ethnicity (for example, the Scandinavians are usually considered to be a single ethnicity; some European Jews are considered to be part of the local ethnicity rather than separate Jewish ethnicity; most European Jews has different ethnicity than Judean Jews), while some other groups, where due to historical reasons there were less intermarriages, might be considered to be separate ethnicities despite speaking the same language (different Polynesian groups are considered to be different ethnicities due to the genetical difference that arose from the long isolation of their islands from one another; Arabic nation as well consisits of several ethnicities). The smallest racological unit is the subethnicity, which is defined by even smaller genetical diffences. Ethnicities were defined before the availability of genetics (Natural Raceology) based on looks and measurements, however this field of research, similarly to the subethnicities, became more prominent only with the rise of the natural raceology.

The raceology had developed official standarts of how much difference of genes (and what genes) between populations are needed to consider the populations to be part of different subethnicities or ethnicities.

Social issues

There are various tests created by raceologists, such as measurments of various body elements, which helps to determine what race the person belongs to. Generally, this puts the so-called "hybryds" (mulattoes, metiszoes and such) into one of the subraces. Modern tests for this includes genetical tests, which are more reliable, although according to those tests person of mixed origin is relatively frequently is found out to have more genes of other race than he expected according to his looks. In general, races are unimportant, but they are a common thing to note in personal characteristics, as well in dating websites, catalogues of people of such proffessions as actors, models, prostitutes and the race is as well written in passports of some countries, similarly to ethnicity. Due to the generally calmer view towards this issue, this had never raised public outcry, and it as well arguably helps in searching for criminals and such issues. As well, it is generally acceptable to write when searching for a worker that you search for a worker of some specific race or subrace - but this is rare and mostly limited to such fields as actors or models (e.g. some designer might be feeling that his/her clothes would look better on models of some specific subrace). Due to the general popularity of racology, it is as well generally considered strange or a glitch if for example in movie a family of characters belonging to one subrace has a child of another subrace; such things are generally more noticed by the people in Ill Bethisad than they perhaps would be *here*.

This page was created by Abdul-aziz.