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The impact of stereotypes
Impact of stereotypes on individuals and society
Impact of stereotypes on society
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Race is a socially constructed divider based on physical differences such as skin tones, but are not limited to facial features, body features, accents, etc. There are not separate genes, traits, or characteristics that define any single group from another group. Police once walked up to Korematsu to ask if he had seen a “short Asian man”, adding stereotypes to the classification, when the police were looking for Korematsu. Korematsu had surgery performed so his eyelids would have less folds to look more, white (I would say American, but Korematsu is American and that changed nothing). Hence, this touchy subject of race is what makes it so much harder to discuss.
In other words, race is understood differently around the world. According to the text book, in West Africa, people are categorized into racial groups based on the status of having noble ancestry and not physical features. Also, according to the article, “Defining Race”, race is categorized base on individuals’ social class status and wealth. Furthermore, the invention of race reflects social, economic, and political aspects in society. For example, White American who has white and black ancestry will be considered as black because black slaves are free source of labor, and white population want to increase the number of labor.
Dylan Frank 9/30/16 ANT 190 FSEM Professor Knauft Existing Outside of the Racial Binary The way an individual perceives his or her own personal identity can differ greatly from how he or she is seen by society. Although race is a social construct, its impact has been profound.
I have seen the unique place in the organic world occupied by the human species, the profound physical, as well as moral, differences separating it from all kinds of living creatures. Race, technically, refers to differential concentrations of gene frequencies responsible for traits. They are separated from one another, on the basis of certain biological characteristics. Principle races are Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid. Most educated folks would settle for the actual fact that the planet isn’t flat which it revolves around the sun.
(Cassidy & Grieco, 2001). The term race is often viewed by others as a social construct rather than biologic or genetic. Some view it as what one looks like in a physical feature or see race as a cultural difference. Race is a human Construct. Race is a made of categorization that’s based on physical appearances.
We have marched on through history and have viewed race from all three of sociology’s main perspectives. And now, in the midst of the protests in Ferguson we are met once more with simple-minded people who know not of the definition of race. There is not a single chromosome in the bodies of whites that differ in the bodies of blacks. Race is a matter of pigmentation of skin, the amount of melatonin our skin holds, or the texture of our hair. Race is a social construct based merely on appearance, not on biological or genomic science.
In the United States, race has been defined primarily by physical appearance, with people being categorized as black, white, or some other race based on their skin color. However, race has also been defined by ancestry, culture, and geography. For example, people from Japan, China, and Korea have historically been categorized as Asian, while people from India and Pakistan have been categorized as South Asian. Race has been used to create hierarchies based on perceived differences in intelligence, culture, and behavior. White people have historically been seen as the most intelligent and cultured, while people of color have been seen as inferior.
Race and ethnicity are two terms which are used interchangeably in every day conversation, however, there is a distinction between the two. Race is a categorization of people who have been singled out as inferior or superior, often on the basis of phenotype – observable physical characteristics such as skin color, hair texture, eye shape, or other selective attributes. Race is a social construct and has been known to change with historical and political events. Contrarily, ethnicity does not necessarily provide visual clues, instead, ethnicity is categorized on the basis of a shared common culture and includes elements such as language, norms, customs, religion, music, art, literature. Ethnic Groups are developed by their unique history
Race is a social construct, a human-made concept that categorizes individuals based on physical characteristics such as skin color, hair texture, and facial features. The concept of race has been used throughout history to justify discrimination, inequality, and oppression. Despite scientific evidence showing that race has no biological basis, it continues to play a significant role in our society. The idea of race was first developed during the colonial era as a way to categorize and control populations.
Among anthropologists it has become increasingly clear that the concept of race having a biological basis is fundamentally flawed. There a number of flaws with this concept of race. One issue is that features attributed to race, such as skin color, very across the globe in a clinal fashion rather than in uniform groups. Another issue is that there is more in-group variation within races than there is variation between races. Finally, human variation is non-concordant.
Race and ethnicity are our social understanding that reflect upon what race means in society. Race is a socially constructed idea and their traits such as skin color, hair texture, and eyes do not mean anything by themselves. Due to these traits individuals think if themselves and seen by others in society as a separate group. External factors of race are random and internal factors which entitles someone’s own understanding of themselves has created race. Individuals who have both black and white ancestry but look black are labeled as black due to the social significance and construction of race.
The US Sociologist goes on to explain that the concept of race ‘appeals to biological based human characteristics’. At the same time the focus on particular human physical features (such as skin colour, hair, and so on), in order to indicate race, ‘is always and necessarily a social and historical process’ (Winant 2000). It is important to note that sociological theories of race do not pay much attention to the physical features that are associated in the popular imagination with the concept of race. The sociological approach does indeed recognise that some groups of people tend to have darker skin than the others, or differently shaped and coloured hair, and they may tend to be taller and leaner or shorter and heavier. These physical features of their bodies are not meaningful when considered on their own, in isolation from the meanings attached to them by social, cultural and political forces.
Therefore, race is often referred to as a social construct. The differences in skin color and facial appearances have led most of the world to classify humans into groups instead of individual humans. These constructs affect us all, this includes even white people, and they often result in situations where majority racial groups cause unjust treatment, and cruel judgment to those people who would be classified as a minority, which for the most part is people of color. The understanding of race as a social construct is best shown by the judgment of racial issues within our own culture, specifically those that have been most affected by this social construct of race. Categorizing induvial into a group rather than individuals as they are, causes negative affects to people’s action and beliefs, such as the biggest flaw,
The majority of the general public has preconceived ideas as to what a person’s race is based solely on appearance. In general, it can be difficult to identify a person’s race just by looking at their skin color. In each race, there are many variations of skin color and to make it more complex and difficult, not to mention people who are of mixed race. Historically, race has been divided into four categories: black/African American, white, Asian/Pacific Islander, Native American/Alaskan Native.
Race, nationality and ethnicity Race and ethnicity are seen as form of an individual’s cultural identity. Researchers have linked the concept of “race” to the discourses of social Darwinism that in essence is a categorization of “types” of people, grouping them by biological and physical characteristics, most common one being skin pigmentation. Grouping people based on their physical traits has lead in time to the phenomenon of “racialization” (or race formation), as people began to see race as more of a social construct and not a result or a category of biology.