Often, these discussions are hampered not just by inexpertise, but by the imprecision of language. Race is a very poorly defined term. Since the seventeenth century, attempts to categorise people into racial types has resulted in the number of races being anywhere between one and sixty-three. We talk casually of black people, or East Asians, or other categorisations of billions of people that primarily refer either to geographical landmasses or a handful of physical characteristics – none more so than pigmentation.
