I don't agree with scholarship on this. Race is just a word with a blurry definition it does not mean that these categories are non-existent. A continuous spectrum of skin tone and physical features does not eliminate the existence of categories.

The first thing that needs to be addressed here is that not everything is a continuous spectrum either. Race like speciation forms off of branching meaning that although two races come from the same origin the branches form a hard line. Allow me to elucidate:

O
/ \
B A
/ \
C | D

If population C and D descended from O then yes there is a continuous spectrum from C to O and from O to D but not from C directly to D. There is an actual hard distinction from C to D and the next step after this is speciation. For the greater majority of mongoloids and caucasoids this is the division that exists, although there is a definite population that is the O race, C and D have deviated enough where hard lines between skin tone and genetic markers exist in a high enough quantity that a categorization can be made.

Second as a chinese american born in the states what words would you use to categorize me versus you a white pasty caucasian? It is not a purely a social construct. We have hard lines that can be categorized, you can instantly derive my genetic origins and make predictions about my culture from race alone.

Additionally have you ever tried 23 and me? The company can literally trace your "racial" origins from biological markers alone. If such categories don't exist how can a genetic analysis of your genes trace such markers and place you in a category?

If anything the whole "race doesn't exist" movement is more of a social construct in itself among the social sciences. It comes from a strange phenomenon that occurs because humanity hasn't branched out long enough.

The phenomenon is basically this: If you look at the tree diagram above what's going on is that the percentage of genetic similarities among all humans is 99.9% The differences between all humans are more or less 0.1% with some people having slightly greater differences and others having less.

You would think though that there should be a greater difference between groups C and D then between C and B but what they find is that the amount of genetic differences between people of the same race is more or less the same as the amount of genetic differences between people of different races. Part of what causes this is the fact that humanity hasn't been around long enough for genetic divergence among different races to become greater than the genetic diversity within the racial population itself. Given a longer period of divergence you will begin to be able to say that the genetic differences between C and D are greater than C and B. From this many scholars say that "race doesn't exist" (yet).

The logic doesn't really make sense as intuitively race is categorized by genetic similarities not differences. Africans have the genes for darker skin and Caucasians have the genes for lighter skin. Because groups share genetic characteristics and markers, they are part of the same "race." The percentage of genetic differences is not a factor in categorization. Thus racial vocabulary can be used to classify groups that share these genetic similarities.

The motivation for this whole "race" doesn't exist phenomenon among academia is to me more of a reaction to the historical negatives associated with "race." Either way, the algorithms on 23 and me already encode exact formal definitions of race so the scientific and genetic formalization of the concept of race is not only possible, it is already done.

> If someone is mixed parentage, what "race" are they?

English nomenclature allows for creative composition of vocabulary. You can call someone of mixed parentage a "mixed race."