Race as an illusion is by far one of the most interesting struggles facing modern America. In every aspect of life, we see the influence that race plays. These aspects include everything from daily activities to social preferences to personal rights and liberties. Every day there are news stories and articles acknowledging and recognizing the societal differences influenced by aspects of race. After reading and interacting with this online article, I think it is fair to argue that the reason race is such an issue, is that it is highly misunderstood in this country. I was personally shocked and surprised at some of the modules and what they actually taught me about race. They were enlightening and eye-opening.
I would like to address three distinct modules in this activity and how they have affected my understanding of race in the world. At many times and instances, people assume they can classifying and categorize individuals based on appearances and traits. We think it is easy. People with lighter or darker skin can be grouped together, people with similar facial and muscular-skeletal structures can be grouped together, and finally, people similar languages can be grouped together. What this module taught me, is how wrong this assumption is. What was most
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We use physical traits and appearances to classify individuals, but beyond that, we assume that genetic traits also lead to the ability to group and classify. In reality, traits are nothing more than individual, separate traits. They do not serve as easily distinguishable comparators of race. Lightness or darkness of skin does not distinguish, blood type does not distinguish and many other factors do not distinguish. To sum up the idea of this module one could say, paraphrasing the article, that traits do not determine race, origin does. What these origins mean in the greater societal construct is a topic for further