Race has more than one meaning, though. You can, in fact, use it in both an ethnic, and a non-ethnic way. The ethnic way would be to describe each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics, (or in the case of animals, within an animal species to describe different classes or sub-species/breeds of that animal) - and in a non-ethnic way in each of the major divisions of living creatures, as in a member of the human race, or the race of birds ( ... )