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Race is a social construct of a biological reality
Race is a social construct of a biological reality
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This simple nine word quotation from Matshona Dhliwayo summarizes much of what Jane Elliot has spent her entire career trying to get people to understand. Watching the film, The Essential Blue Eyed, gave me an entirely new perspective on racism and in truth, showed how ignorant I had been. Jane Elliot is able to give study participants and viewers a completely new perspective on the social construction of race. According to the University of Minnesota, race refers to a category of people that share physical characteristics such as facial features and skin color (UMN 1).
The concept of race has been around for a long time. Little did I know it was something that people created unconsciously. The film, “Race:The Power of an Illusion III” talks in depth about how race became a thing. For starters we know that the whole concept started when immigrants starting coming to the United States for freedom, opportunity, and the ultimate American Dream for them and their family.
Throughout history, race has been an ongoing theme. Race was used to define a person as well as the rights that they held. People of races other than white were given little to none respect and were not treated as human beings but instead property. It was a constant battle between races, therefore forming a them versus us society. Through history there were many people who were treated based off their race, there were many different government made laws and documents that defined and laid out the rights of those certain races.
It could also be argued that some aspects of the biological view of race are, to some extent, positive today because, over the years, the way scientists saw race has been altered as a result of what the previous biologic view provoked (Darwinian evolution), which was hatred and discrimination towards those groups of individuals that were different to them. This meant that many experts in the field made statements regarding the wrongness within the Darwin evolution. One of these experts was R.L Hotz, who admitted that there was only a single type of race, which was the human race and that it couldn’t be opposed biologically (Hotz, 1997). This, in other words, means that the way race was seen and the way it is now seen by some biologists has
The beginning of the book highlights the importance of race. Race was invented and assigned to individuals solely on their outward appearance. Most Americans unconsciously accept race as a product of Mother Nature. In reality, it has nothing to do with your genetics.
After reading Chapter eleven I learned how race is looked at culturally among different places and what race and ethinicty is looked at. For example in Latin America where the Spanish and Portuguese colonized, many Afrcians and Native Americans were more free to have sexual contact with other races/people, so their were more mix races and caused more people in Latin America to be more accepting, even though attitudes remained about "Whiteness" and "Blackness". Another example I learned was how American culture views race, they equated race with lower socioeconomic status and intelligence and whats interesting is that how race and ethinicty in one culture shows social status and where you belong, just because of how you look. Ethinicity in cultures
Race is a divisive factor in many populations. It is a concept to categorize people based on their physical traits, such as skin color, and genetics. Race can be used as a mechanism for social division. As the novel unfolds, Huckleberry Finn’s perspective on race changes as he sees the importance for equality in Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Since people moved around and spread their genes, our genetics are non-concordant, which means that they are not determined by one gene. If the colonial view of race was true, then everybody in the same race would have the same exact genes, but in reality, you're more likely to have more genetic similarities with somebody outside your race than within your race. Race is a construct that was made by colonial rulers in order to gain power over their subjects, but it still has very real consequences for those it has been used against. Race is a social construct that is still being used to maintain power over groups of color, although the time of colonization has come and gone and scientific advancements have come on to prove it untrue.
Kallen Brunson In the article, “How Race becomes Biology: Embodiment of Social Inequality” by Clarence C. Gravlee, Gravlee argues that race, and the assumption of race in everyday life, makes the difference in biology much more clear and affects the life cycles of people due to their perceived race (Gravlee, 51). The author provides, using both his research and others’, an argument against the complete notion that race is only a social construct (Gravlee, 53). Through a series of statements, Gravlee states that race shouldn’t simply be excluded from anthropological discussion, but incorporated into present views regarding healthcare and impacts on society.
Racialization First off, I loved that the article “Race as Biology is Fiction…” addressed a really important issue right off the bat. It is crazy to me how so many people don’t know that race doesn’t exist. Despite the fact that race does and only exists as a social construct, it does not exist in an actual biological sense, which is something I believe everyone should know. I remember being in middle school when my French teacher told our class that in France they don’t ask a person’s race because it’s not right. My French teacher was the one that first brought it to my attention that there is no such thing as race, that the only race is the human race.
Introduction Race is a socially constructed concept that has been used to create and justify inequalities throughout history. The idea of race has been used to create hierarchies, determine social status, and justify discriminatory practices against people who were perceived as being different. The construction of race has been based on a number of factors, including physical appearance, culture, and ancestry. In this essay, I will explore how race has been defined and acted upon historically, using examples such as the thirty-meter telescope in Hawaii, racial segregation in Levittown, the Ozawa Supreme Court case, and the Thind Supreme Court case. I will also discuss how biology has been used in the past to falsely create definitions of race
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
This means that the closer two peoples ancestral groups lived to each other, the more similar there skin color will be. This concept is not isolated to skin color, but is nearly universally constant among biological variation. It is difficult to argue that race is based upon biology when
Each individual has their own different social identity. One’s social identity is constructed based on the different influences around them. The development of social identity is influenced by various factors such as the historical, cultural and religious beliefs of the society, community or family where one is brought up. It is influenced by the behaviours and attitudes of authority figures such as parents, teachers and community leaders around them, it is also influenced by external factors such as the media, one’s peers and the overall exposure one has (Carrim, 2006, p56).
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.
