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Sociological perspectives on racism
Social construction of race and how it affects society
Social construction of race and how it affects society
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Society creates racial formations because despite the concept of race being problematic and contradictory, it plays an important role in representing social structure. We “utilize race to provide clues about who a person is” (Omi & Winant 24), and without this ability to quickly judge someone, we become discomforted. This is one of the ways racial formations are perpetuated: by stereotypes. We expect people to act a certain way based on their racial identities and are perplexed when they don’t. Religion, science, and government also sustain racial categories.
There are many types of inequalities, whether that be social, economic, or political, and with these inequalities there are privilege that are given to the majority groups and isn’t received by the minorities. Reading the Matrix of Races has opened my ideas to the different forms of these three groups of inequalities, and has helped me define, and look at them in a broader way. But is this equality a terrible thing? Does it need to be fix and reformed as much as we think is does?
Social Construction of Race Race shapes individuals identity whether consciously or not. It determines the way others perceive us and how we perceive others based on skin color, characteristics, and stereotypes that are created by society. However, race is not an objective truths, but rather a subjective illusion created by society. Haney Lopez dives deeper into socially constructed race and determines that biological races are false, and social race exist as a social phenomenon.
According to the film race is a biological "myth" and as outdated as belief that the sun revolved around the earth. Race is a concept that was invented to categorize the perceived biological, social, and cultural differences between human groups. Based on modern genetic science that can decode the genetic puzzle of DNA there is no significant genetic or biological differences between the races. Race is an artificial construct imposed by the ruling classes to justify first slavery and then segregation. One of the main findings concerning the genetic make-up of the students in the course was that skin color really is only skin deep.
Continuing our discussion regarding cultural diversity, students were asked to discuss the primary problems with the concept of race. Additionally, what are the social and political implications of using race to define and study groups of people? McNamara and Burns (2009) defined race as a “social phenomenon in which biological differences become markers of status within a social system” (p.6). We are essentially viewing a person for their differences that separates us from one another which in turn creates a stereotype.
One very important thing that this article covered is that race is a social construct, but it being a social construct does not make it any less real. I really liked the line “It’s real in the same way that Wednesday is real.” Oftentimes people will hear race called a social construct, and interpret it as saying that race is not real and therefore does not matter. But race is very real. It is just important to recognize the ways in which it is real and the ways it is not.
Being identified as black is different than being born black even though she believes its the same thing. She wears a curly dark haired wig and looks like she had darkened
While race is not biologically constructed, race is a real identification for social categories. The main confusion is that some people may have used the word race and ethnicity interchangeably in verbal communication. Therefore, before going any further, some insight with regards to the topics of race and ethnicity is helpful because both are not the same, and they have different delivery of meanings in communication. In comparison to ethnicity, “race is based on shared physical characteristics [and] ethnicity is based on shared cultural characteristics” such as the language, religion, and any aspects of culture (Writing Explained).
From the moment we are born, we live in a world that is socially constructed. This constitutes the way we live, the friends we make, the types of jobs we have, etc. In essence, the social world decides our race and what we are viewed as in the world. How we are seen and how we see others affects numerous areas of our lives, which ultimately create diversity, oppression, prejudice and discrimination in our culture. We are socially constructed to see people through a lens of black, white, Asian, minority, or “other”.
What is race? Race is the classification of people based off genetics or social relations. There are many classifications of race such as African Americans, Mexicans, Hispanics, Latinos and many more. Racism has always been an issue in America. It still is a major problem in the world today.
Race exists as long as we believe it exists, but really, it's just a classification system developed by people. It has no meaning or value apart from what we determine it to have. According to researchers there is no genetics for division of human ethnicity, in the sense that different groups inherit distinctive physical traits for example hair, eye, and skin color, race is a reality. Race can be used in prejudice discriminative way to create a barrier, built within people’s minds in society. Which leads one race being superior to another and of there being pure races, race is a myth.
Racial identity plays a role in the physical and psychological features of humans. Physically, humans in different parts of the globe endure different conditions and environments. Humans adapt to their environments and obtain different physical traits, henceforth, these physical traits have become adjacent to race. Psychologically, ancestral prejudices and influences throughout history have lingered through the generations and have impacted modern racial identities and tensions. Ethnic conflicts of the past such as the Social Darwinist theory of a "superior race" are morally refuted in current times, but that assumption had a brunt impact in which the world is still repairing today.
I decided to express my Sociological Perspective based on Race and Ethnicity. Being born in the United States I was taught in school; men and women have equal rights and opportunity. Even though this is correct; as a Latina, social patterns taught me differently. As a Latin American woman it’s strange to admit how traditionally, I was raised to be a mom and wife first than anything. Being that both my parents moved to United States to gain equal opportunities, this chapter explained to me how society shapes what we think and do in pattern ways.
Racism occurs when a minority group is defined, negative characteristics are associated with them, and they are kept at a disadvantage to others. The most interesting aspect of racism is how people justify making their classifications. Race is a socially constructed term. This means people of a society made up race without any real backing or evidence to do so. One’s race is based mostly on their physical characteristics like skin color or hair type, or lineage.
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.
