Is the Concept of Race on "Locke"?

Is the concept of race “on Locke”?  Or is it a disease?

The biggest point that I got out of Lockes reading was that race does not express culture, but culture produces race. This appears to be a bold thesis with a lot of weight and support.  That is it not geographical regions that provide the illusion of race, but it is psychological differences that give the appearance that a “group” of people are different in the sense to form a “race” or counter species. But this reading has only left me with more questions than answers.  It seems to me that he is likely to be very accurate on this, but I’m not so sure on the precision and he definitely does not answer all the questions. This is a question combining multiple fields, including genetics, philosophy, geography, and anthropology (which may not may not even exist according to class discussion).  Locke quotes Flinders-Petrie saying that “the only meaning a race can have is a group of persons whose type has become unified by their rate of assimilation and affection by their conditions, exceeding the rate of change produces by foreign elements.” This supports what Locke is saying, but Locke does not explain why or how the concept even exists, which is the main question I’m thinking about.  From this reading this is what I have gathered. I might be rabbit trailing a tad off queue but this is what I am pondering after these readings.

Race to me sounds like a human behavioral construct consisting of the pursuit of finding the familiar and avoiding the unfamiliar. The more different someone looks or acts, I think it makes sense evolutionarily, that we tend to avoid or be cautious towards unfamiliar people or things.  It makes sense psychologically because the amygdala is the area in the brain that has a strong role in facial processing and social cognition, but is it also a key component in fear and anxiety disorders. It also shows there is a basis for this behavior genetically and neurologically because autistic children have issues with facial recognition and social anxiety (Grelotti, DJ et al; 2005). (Sorry for nerding out on neuroscience =) ) But If this is true, then this explains why the illusion of race exists, but it doesn’t explain if race it’s self exists.  Unfamiliarity is going to stimulate this region providing a fear response, possibly providing a neurological basis for this phenomenon.  Locke appears to be on point, in my view because race does not have a clear border or boundary, it is abstract and varies between people.  In my view, racism sounds like a medical condition really, similar to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  One hypothetically could be racist enough to dislike the person next to them, even of the same skin color or gender, and they could be called a “race”.  Thus, since there is no way to even empirically support the concept of race, therefore it must not exist.  There is some evidence for biological differences in people from different regions, however that does not make them a different “race”, and the data appears to be sketchy on this anyway.  However we are all one species but have minute genetic differences which at times are irrationally motivated by fear and anxiety.  I think we could dive even deeper into facial recognition and what are the definite premises are of racist behavior and even the whole illusion itself.  More questions are, is this fear learned? Is it an innate fear? Why do we discriminate and have subconscious social anxieties? What is the basis for this?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15707614

http://www.people.vcu.edu/~mreimers/SysNeuro/Adolphs%20-%20Fear,%20faces%20and%20amygdala.pdf