For example if an orphan Asian child from china were placed with an american family that child will not be chines they would be an american. The only culture they would know is an american way of life. Their genetics would still make them Asian though. — guidance

From what I've observed with my own and other's children, children's temperament is established before they are born. They come out of their mothers already who they are. Those differences seem similar to others we expect to be passed down from family - eye or hair color, height, etc, i.e. there seem to be familial patterns of temperament. I assume, without specific objective evidence, that those differences are genetic.

If that's true, it seems plausible there might be differences in temperament between people from different genetically related groups which might lead a child born in China to react differently to American culture than one born here would.

I think you may have misinterpreted the definition.

The OP is right, the Webster Dictionary definition of culture does indeed begin with this:

Culture: the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (such as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time.

I think what the OP is objecting to, is the use of the term 'racial', because the very concept of 'race' is generally nowadays deprecated - Wikipedia says that 'modern scholarship views racial categories as socially constructed, that is, race is not intrinsic to human beings but rather an identity created to establish meaning in a social context.' (Interestingly, there is also a push to regard gender as similarly a 'social construction' rather than a biological given.)

So basically, I think the complaint is that the Webster dictionary definition of culture is politically incorrect.

race is not intrinsic to human beings but rather an identity created to establish meaning in a social context — Wayfarer

I agree with that. But given that race is not genetic, but is yet another socially constructed grouping like religion and "other social groupings" it does not seem politically incorrect to speak of a Samoan culture, Thai culture, Japanese culture. It's only if we reduce race to genetics that it would rightly be absurd, however, I don't think the definition is reducing race to genetics... or they would have used 'genetics' rather than race.

A racial group is just one kind of group. It takes a group to have a culture. So, the OP misunderstood.

given that race is not genetic — bloodninja

Say what? Did someone say that race is not genetically determined? So it's just a coincidence that people of African ancestry tend to have brown skins while people of Scandinavian ancestry tend to have white skins?

Not all white groups have the same culture even though they're all caucasoid. The same is true of negroid and mongoloid groups. Perhaps that point will be heard.

From Wikipedia:

Craig Venter and Francis Collins of the National Institute of Health jointly made the announcement of the mapping of the human genome in 2000. Upon examining the data from the genome mapping, Venter realized that although the genetic variation within the human species is on the order of 1–3% (instead of the previously assumed 1%), the types of variations do not support notion of genetically defined races. Venter said, "Race is a social concept. It's not a scientific one. There are no bright lines (that would stand out), if we could compare all the sequenced genomes of everyone on the planet." "When we try to apply science to try to sort out these social differences, it all falls apart."

I looked up the word culture in the Webster dictionary and I was surprise to find race as a part of the definition. That does not make sense. A culture should be defined as a societies way of life not their genetics. — guidance

I agree with these points previously made by others:
1) "Race" is a social, rather than genetic, construct.

Most scientists have long recognized that it is a futile exercise to try to define discrete human races. Such entities do not in fact exist. — Edward O. Wilson, On Human Nature (2004)

In any case, it is too narrow a term to be used in a general definition of "culture".
2) All social groups develop their own culture.

Social Group: two or more people having cohesive social relations based on identified similarities, and affiliated under the terms and conditions of a social contract for a specific purpose (i.e., common goal).

Social Contract: an agreement between the members of a social group (either implicit or explicit) to achieve a specific purpose (i.e., common goal).

Culture: the collective mindset and consequent products of a social group.

So:
1) Culture is not limited to societies. For example, a sole proprietorship and multinational corporation will each have its own unique culture.
2) A culture could be defined in terms of genetics, as in the case of kin groups (e.g., bands, tribes, and clans).

Craig Venter and Francis Collins of the National Institute of Health jointly made the announcement of the mapping of the human genome in 2000. Upon examining the data from the genome mapping, Venter realized that although the genetic variation within the human species is on the order of 1–3% (instead of the previously assumed 1%), the types of variations do not support notion of genetically defined races. Venter said, "Race is a social concept. It's not a scientific one. There are no bright lines (that would stand out), if we could compare all the sequenced genomes of everyone on the planet." "When we try to apply science to try to sort out these social differences, it all falls apart." — bloodninja

Thank you.

So basically, I think the complaint is that the Webster dictionary definition of culture is politically incorrect. — Wayfarer

Merriam-Webster does stick out from the other dictionaries (online) with referring to race. And it does in my view have a bit odd definitions about race too:

Definition of race

1 : a breeding stock of animals

2 a : a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock

b : a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics

3 a : an actually or potentially interbreeding group within a species; also : a taxonomic category (such as a subspecies) representing such a group

b : breed

c : a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits.

Seldom have heard definition 2b.

True. Suspect it was digitized from rather an old edition of the original text.

I think you are correct. The reason is very likely simply digitalization from an old text here. Merriam-Webster isn't updated in the fashion of Wikipedia, but likely some poor people have to crawl over words from time to time. After all, the first dictionary came out in the 1840s.

Doesn't make any sense that Merriam-Webster would be on purpose different here from all the other dictionaries.

The dictionary from which Google defines words (it's not attested--but it appears to be the Oxford-UK version) says:

race - second noun meaning
noun
noun: race; plural noun: races
each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics.
"people of all races, colors, and creeds"
synonyms: ethnic group, racial type, origin, ethnic origin, color
"students of many different races"
a group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc.; an ethnic group.
"we Scots were a bloodthirsty race then"
synonyms: ethnic group, racial type, origin, ethnic origin, color More
the fact or condition of belonging to a racial division or group; the qualities or characteristics associated with this.
"people of mixed race"
synonyms: ethnic group, racial type, origin, ethnic origin, color
"students of many different races"
a group or set of people or things with a common feature or features.
"some male firefighters still regarded women as a race apart"
BIOLOGY
a population within a species that is distinct in some way, especially a subspecies.
"people have killed so many tigers that two races are probably extinct"
(in nontechnical use) each of the major divisions of living creatures.
"a member of the human race"
literary
a group of people descended from a common ancestor.
"a prince of the race of Solomon"
archaic
ancestry.
"two coursers of ethereal race"
Origin

early 16th century (denoting a group with common features): via French from Italian razza, of unknown ultimate origin.

The Merriam Webster on-line version that I checked is close to the one you read:

: a breeding stock of animals
2 a : a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock
b : a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics
3 a : an actually or potentially interbreeding group within a species; also : a taxonomic category (such as a subspecies) representing such a group
b : breed
c : a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits
4 obsolete : inherited temperament or disposition
5 : distinctive flavor, taste, or strength

The Oxford US version has several inclusions:

race2
NOUN

1Each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics.

Although ideas of race are centuries old, it was not until the 19th century that attempts to systematize racial divisions were made. Ideas of supposed racial superiority and social Darwinism reached their culmination in Nazi ideology of the 1930s and gave pseudoscientific justification to policies and attitudes of discrimination, exploitation, slavery, and extermination. Theories of race asserting a link between racial type and intelligence are now discredited. Scientifically it is accepted as obvious that there are subdivisions of the human species, but it is also clear that genetic variation between individuals of the same race can be as great as that between members of different races
— Oxford Dictionary US

‘people of all races, colors, and creeds’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.1 The fact or condition of belonging to a racial division or group; the qualities or characteristics associated with this.
‘people of mixed race’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.2 A group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc.; an ethnic group.
‘we Scots were a bloodthirsty race then’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.3 A group or set of people or things with a common feature or features.
‘the upper classes thought of themselves as a race apart’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.4Biology A population within a species that is distinct in some way, especially a subspecies.
‘people have killed so many tigers that two races are probably extinct’
More example sentences
1.5 (in nontechnical use) each of the major divisions of living creatures.
‘a member of the human race’
‘the race of birds’
More example sentences
1.6literary A group of people descended from a common ancestor.
‘a prince of the race of Solomon’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.7archaic Ancestry.
‘two coursers of ethereal race’

Usage
In recent years, the associations of race with the ideologies and theories that grew out of the work of 19th-century anthropologists and physiologists has led to the word race itself becoming problematic. Although still used in general contexts (race relations, racial equality), it is now often replaced by other words that are less emotionally charged, such as people(s) or community

Origin
Early 16th century (denoting a group with common features): via French from Italian razza, of unknown ultimate origin.

At the not inconsiderable risk of being warned and being banned, I would like to say a word on behalf of "race".

"Race" is genetic. I do not "happen to be white"; I am white because both my parents, and most (at least) of their ancestors were white. Xi Jinping doesn't happen to be asian. He is asian because both of his parents were asian. Jesse Jackson or Oprah don't "happen to be black". I happen to live in Minnesota, however. That was a choice. Sort of, anyway.

Race is generally (not always) recognizable at a glance. Blacks, whites, Asians, and aboriginals tend to have certain common visual features: skin color; hair shape (flat, oval, or round hair); a higher, narrower, flatter, or broader nose structure; thinner or fuller lips, a slight difference in eye lid That said, there isn't any inherent advantage of one nose shape over another, though. Depending on where you live, there are advantages to differences in skin color. (Darker skin reduces the incidence of skin cancer for people who live nearer the equator. Light skin enables Scandinavians living closer to the arctic circle to make enough vitamin D.)

There appear to be some subtle biological differences. Blacks, asians, whites, and aboriginals sometimes have varying reactions to specific medications, which though not extreme, can have an effect on treatment outcomes.

Race (and ethnicity) has been sufficiently obvious to various people at various times that they could consistently either favor or disfavor specific groups of people belonging to racial or ethnic groups. Europeans were quite consistent in enslaving black people. They didn't mistake Norwegians for Nigerians.

The word "race" seems to be OK in discourses about racial prejudices, racial discrimination, racial conflict, race-baiting, and racism. Discourses about racial accomplishments, racial pride, racial characteristics (when and where co-incident with culture) ... probably verboten. White pride bad, black pride good. White lives matter bad, black lives matter good.

The appropriate attempt to eliminate "racism" by restricting and policing the use of the word "race" is mistaken, because the word "race" and the basic reality behind the existences of "races" isn't the cause of racism. "Racism" as the British and Americans practiced it, was first a cover for ruthless and total economic exploitation in the form of enslavement of Africans. Enslavement needed the cover of inferiority and otherness--both. Subhumans could be mistreated as readily as beasts. "Humans" deserved protections and rights.

The English treated their poor fellow Brits (exported as often as possible to the colonies as detailed in White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America‎ by Nancy Isenberg) pretty much like vermin. No surprise that the Lords of the Manor didn't have much regard for the humanity of slaves. At least some English Protestant religious traditions held Native Indians to be unsouled savages, along with Africans. The Catholic Portuguese, French, and Spanish practiced slavery too, with the difference that they at least usually thought their slaves were fully human (but were enslaved, none the less).

So, yes: I think we can talk about race and culture. Excluded racial groups, excluded ethnic groups--hell, excluded sexual deviants--are going to develop cultural features unique to their excluded racial/ethnic/sexual group. After all, INCLUDED racial groups, like White Anglo-Saxon Protestants developed unique cultural practices. The imprint of WASPish/up-market white culture is pretty deep. So are other people's up-market or down-market race/culture combos, like black culture for instance.

So, if I get banned... so long; it's been good to know you.

Race is generally (not always) recognizable at a glance. Blacks, whites, Asians, and aboriginals tend to have certain common visual features: skin color; hair shape (flat, oval, or round hair); a higher, narrower, flatter, or broader nose structure; thinner or fuller lips, a slight difference in eye lid — Bitter Crank

This is so wrong this is good. It shows why "race" should be done away with. The simple fact that you are tempted to use "white" as a racial category just undermine everything else.

The simple fact that you are tempted to use "white" as a racial category just undermine everything else. — Akanthinos

And why does it undermine everything else for you? What is your problem?

And what is the matter with using "white"? The last time I checked, "white" was a racial group, like American Indians. You didn't object to black, asian, or aboriginal. I think of myself as white. I grew up in a Minnesota county that is still 98% white--German, Scandinavian, a few Brits, and some Hmong,

Granted, race and culture don't always match. A volunteer in the local Finnish school is Somalian but grew up in Finland. She knows continental Finnish first hand in the way the blond Finns don't (for the most part).

Surely talking about race is required for coming to acceptable terms with the history of racism.

What our friend Bitter is saying could also be said by a racist. Doesn't make Bitter one, does it?

The simple fact that you are tempted to use "white" as a racial category just undermine everything else. — Akanthinos

Typical of white people to do that. >:)

When one passes judgment upon an entire group of people based upon the acts of only a few, s/he has dipped a toe into racist ground. It's a bit sandy, but not in a good way.

And why does it undermine everything else for you? What is your problem?

And what is the matter with using "white"? The last time I checked, "white" was a racial group, like American Indians. You didn't object to black, asian, or aboriginal. I think of myself as white. I grew up in a Minnesota county that is still 98% white--German, Scandinavian, a few Brits, and some Hmong, — Bitter Crank

As I discussed in a previous thread, 'race' as a scientific category only makes sense in relation to subjects of breeding. It doesn't apply to species of beings that have not been subjected to controled and arbitrary reproductive selection. Because of this, it is perfectly appropriate to speak scientifically of races of dogs, cats, horses, hogs, bovines and probably a lot others.

Now, this can be put to debate, but I think that it is not meaningful to frame the selective pressure that act upon humans for sexual partnership as breeding. We don't look to maintain or select traits, and while we can sometimes reduce our criterion to materialistic conditions, they are often external, like income and prestige, which cannot mean anything racially.

For 'race' to be useful, we would have to work out categories derived from population mouvements over the last 2000 years. which pretty much none of us can do. I've got French, English and Métis blood in me, in absolutely impossible percentages to work out. I can trace back my French ancestry back to the 1500s, and deduce some stuff about them back to the Crusades, but nothing relevant about their genetic makeup. I can get back about 200 years for the two others. And yet, I am "white". Everyone who sees me and thinks in common 'racial' categories will think either "white" or "caucasian". It means absolutely nothing relevant whatsoever.

Scientifically, race is complicated enough that we ought to leave the defining (or debunking) of it to the actual biologists and geneticists. If you want to communicate a hard scientific understanding of why race is meaningless, you've got to go through the scientific models underpinning genetics that reveal why there is no underlying meaning to the term (no easy task).

But when most people speak of race, they're doing so unscientifically. In some cases it's short hand for loose regional ancestry (i.e, blacks have ancestors in Africa, whites have ancestors in Europe, "asians" have ancestry in.... Asia...).

Sometimes we're really just referencing skin color and facial features. "Is an albino african "Black"?

I really don't get why race is such a polarizing issue. One side borders on segregationist racialism from "race realism" while the other side offers a full blown denial of race and racial differences by insisting it's a "social construct"... It's all uneducated bologna...

One side borders on segregationist racialism from "race realism" while the other side offers a full blown denial of race and racial differences by insisting it's a "social construct"... It's all uneducated bologna... — VagabondSpectre

I offered a way out of this full blown denial. The fact that this way out is not a path we are capable of walking down the whole way is completely out of my hands. I've looked up my ancestry, and I derive a great pride from their accomplishments and struggles both in America and Europe. But I'm proud of things that I know, that I can attribute to real people, not to some conjured common ancestry that never existed in the first place. Frenchmen two centuries ago would have started a war at the suggestion that they were the same race as Bulgarians!

Genetic populations would have the advantage of being more factually accurate than common categorization of 'races', but then they would lose all the political meaningfulness left in the term from the ancestral use of 'race' as 'people'.

And, in the end, it's just creepy. Just talk about cultures. Common habits and goals shared by people, that's what has always been more important. For example, it was easier (although not really easy either sadly) for a Catholic African man who spoke French well to integrate and prosper in Renaissance France than for many Jewish families who maintained their own seperate practices.

Thank you all for replying. I saw many people jump to black and white even though I was talking about Chines culture and american culture. The only race I mentioned was Asian and didn't mention a race for America. The talk about cultures clashing was more about differing ways of life like the Kurdish and Iraqi who both have various genetics, but live and die over their way of life. It seems different here in american it's like we struggle with racial assumptions and generalizations, but can accept a different cultures or ways of life.

After reading through the responses I did see some points where people are looking for clarity. When it comes to the word race I'm not looking for political correctness in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, I'm looking for correctness in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Races of humans should be described by their genetic variations, that makes sense to me. It's fine for all people to have and celebrate their differences including race, but the problem comes when someones race is connected to their culture, ideals, personality, or way of life. These traits are not genetic and the only reason people believe they are is because that's what they've been taught to believe. The studies that have information claiming different races have different temperaments, personalities, and IQ's are based on people who are already grown or in their teens, around the time when you'll form your way of thinking for the rest of your life. These studies often leave out the environment / culture those people are coming from and how they may have formed that individuals behaviors and beliefs. I also rarely see the questions being asked or how a behavior is identified through these studies.

A better way to find out if different races are in some way incompatible with different cultures is to have studies either from birth or using orphans no older than 3 months. Placing children of various races and genders with caregivers who are from cultures that differ from where they are born. Seeing if those children grow up to reject or accept their caregivers, environment, and the way of life where they are placed can give real insight. The key would be to find out if they reject or accept the way of life they are presented with based on their own perception of the genetic differences or just because the people around them accepting or rejecting them. Different stimuli from peers to media can affect the way a child perceives who or what they should be especially when the media is not digested with critical thought of what they are being presented with.

To those who believe even babies already have a personality at birth, I reject that belief. You can't have a personality until you understand the people and culture around you and are able to express yourself verbally. At birth their just starting to figure it out. How do you know a child is crying due to growing pains, food, or irritation?

I appreciate all the discussion.

The best way to sum up what I'm saying is learned behavior overrides any beliefs of genetic predisposition to living one way or another. Learned behavior can come from media, caretakers, parents and peers. The culture we follow and become a part of depends on where we feel most accepted. We are all products of the information we get from our environment and how we make meaning of that information.

but the problem comes when someones race is connected to their culture, ideals, personality, or way of life. — guidance

The best way to sum up what I'm saying is learned behavior overrides any beliefs of genetic predisposition to living one way or another. — guidance

Did you think the definition that you mentioned was saying that race (or genetics as you understand it) somehow determines culture? I think you have slipped that idea in there on your own buddy.

The Webster definition reads that culture is "the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group."

The definition does not say that culture has anything to do with a genetic predisposition, or more importantly, that race determines culture in some contradictory and weird genetic way (after all the definition EXPLICITLY suggests that culture is ONLY social and learned e.g.,"customary") . It is ONLY YOU who is adding to this definition that "genetics" somehow causes or determines culture. The definition does not say this at all. Race is but one example of a GROUP of people who happen to generally share similar social practices that are grounded in their shared history. Similarly religion is but one example of a GROUP, as are various other social forms examples of other GROUPS.

It's not about the definition saying it's only related to race. My argument is that it's not related to race at all let me clarify. Culture is social ideology. Race is genetic. race shouldn't be in the definition at all.

What do you mean by "not related to race"? It is time to get clear...

Do people of the same race all have a shared culture?