 Locke argues that biological race is an ethnic fiction. (Locke, 1992, 11 – 12). Putative biological races do not necessarily correspond with the racialized social identities operative in a given society. One way race can be an ethnic fiction is when non-biologically determined ethnic or cultural groups are presumed to be real biological populations, when in fact they are not. Locke does not seem to think that this fictitious conception of race undermines the social reality of the phenomenon. On Locke’s view race amounts to something significant even if many common conceptions of it are mistaken. Racialized populations can be comprised from various genetic, cultural and ethnic intermixtures throughout its history. Isolating any one of the plurality of factors around which a population is racialized as the single factor constituting the race can cause a significant divergence between one’s conception of racial groups and any underlying reality. Such divergence can inform a whole host of mistaken beliefs and misguided racial practices. Locke writes: “[a]s I pointed out, these groups, from the point of view of anthropology, are ethnic fictions. This does not mean that they do not exist, but it can be shown [that these groups do] not have as [permanent] designations those very factors upon which they pride themselves. (Locke, 1992, 11)