Skin color determines how a culture treats a person. With so many variations in shades, it is losing it's effectiveness in identification. Race is assigned by the person not the state. So on government documents, the person can claim to be white, black, mixed race or prefer to specify nothing. It is becoming a matter of opinion for much of the population. On the short form birth certificate race is not include. On the long form, race of each parent is included but today the information is provided by the parents which is no longer required.This is crazy! The color of ones skin is as relevant as the color of your hair. There is virtually no difference between the so called races of Homo Sapiens. There is slightly more genetic variety among people of pure African descent, and people of pure African descent do not have any Neanderthal ancestry. But its ultimately meaningless. Europeans still had dark skin until about 15,000 years ago. Their skin grew lighter to get more Vitamin D from the sun which is not as direct in Europe as it is in Africa, where all Homo Sapiens descend from.