Racial purity
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Racial purity is the belief that people of different race should not intermarry or reproduce, purportedly to protect the "purity" of one or both races.
The belief is often viewed as intrinsically linked to racism and eugenics. Although some have attempted to justify it on biological grounds (eg. Richard Lynn), others contend that it is entirely without scientific merit (eg. Stephen Jay Gould). Those who use the term may also refer to "miscegenation". Both terms are typically used by those who believe that the concept of race is a valid and useful concept when applied to humans.
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Racial purity and Genetic diversity
Many reject the very concept of "racial purity" as an example of overtly racist loaded language, while others consider that maintaining racial purity equates to inbreeding. For them, achieving genetic diversity amongst human populations instead is a desirable objective which enhances biological fitness and improves the overall health of populations due to heterosis (or "hybrid vigor"). Although no empirical evidence in support of these views have been presented, the beneficial effects of heterosis have been established in very many cases in the plant and animal kingdoms, and it is believed that humans are no exception.
Health
The effects on health can be described, at best, as mixed. For example, people of mixed ancestry are less likely to be affected by the sickle cell anemia genetic disorder than people of pure African or Middle eastern ancestry, but are unlikely to have the disease at all if they are of other ethnicities. However, people with the defect are less susceptible to malaria than people with a full supply of functioning red blood cells. Eastern European Jews are at a much higher risk then people of other ethnicities for contracting Tay-Sachs Disease, but this gives an increased resistance to Tuberculosis. Similarly White Caucasian people are susceptible to Cystic fibrosis but the gene for this condition may give increased resistance to Cholera. In all three cases a single copy of the gene gives resistance to an infection while the affected person remains healthy. A double dose of the gene causes the genetic disease. People of mixed race can inherit a single gene from one parent. This can give resistance to infection. The other parent of a different race will not have the same gene. Therefore the mixed race person will not suffer from the genetic disease.
This demonstrates the second principle of racial purity, the elimination of undesirable traits from the gene pool. These genetic diseases, though crippling and fatal, provide resistance to other conditions, which potentially allow the survival of the population. This is a prime example of the potential usefulness of characteristics that would be eliminated in the name of racial purity, but can damage chances of the long-term survival of the population.
Children born from mixed race relationships can possibly benefit from heterosis. Outbreeding depression is dubious to take into account when speaking of humans, due to the specific conditions society provides. Overall the health of Multiracial people is roughly the same as that of people who are not multiracial or not obviously multiracial. What constitutes a race is in itself a subject of much controversy and by many seen as a moot point. To the extent that there are health differences between well-defined genetic groups the differences are so small that it takes careful scientific studies to reveal them.
Evolution
There are two very different views on the impact of "racial purity" on human evolution. Opponents of racial purity hold that avoiding racial mixing damages humanity by preventing favourable genetic mutations from spreading to other populations. Supporters hold that this occurs at the expense of the cline with the positive mutation, and that the same holds true for negative mutations. A negative characteristic that would remain isolated and easily removed through a lesser probability of reproduction, can now spread freely in a genetic environment where it will be transmitted but not likely be expressed until later generations. Opponents hold that the ability of our ancestors to transmute favourable genes (through sailing to new continents) and receive these characteristics contributed to the rapid human evolution over the last million years or so. Supporters respond that isolation is necessary for rapid speciation, and that our ancestors migrated to other areas and remained there, isolated from most other groups, and that there was little to no racial mixing.
Racial mixing is manifest in the stereotype of the exotic foreigner. Opponents of racial purity cite the presence of sexual attraction towards foreigners as a manifestation of sexual selection, indicating heterosis as a positive genetic factor. Natural selection caused humans to develop that sexual interest as it enables people to get those favourable mutations into their families and their communities.
History
Nazi Germany enacted the Anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws against its large German Jewish community, which forbade marriages between Jews (deemed as Untermenschen - "lower people") and Germans "Aryans" (deemed the Übermenschen - "higher people"), and required the sterilization of members of society deemed unfit to reproduce (see T-4 Euthanasia Program). Some proponents of eugenics in the United States also considered the preservation of racial purity as a goal which could be reached by restricting immigration and banning interracial marriage.
Popular culture
The Harry Potter books and movies address the theme of racial purity directly. In the Harry Potter setting, some people are "wizards" (able to perform magic) and others are "Muggles" (unable to perform magic). However, presumably because of genetic mixing in past generations, sometimes a "Muggle-born" turns out to be a wizard, and occasionally a "Wizard-born" person is a "squib", with little or no magical ability. See also Blood purity (Harry Potter).