Concrete Responses The essays included present a compelling but biased study within the context of class, race and gender. History shows racism has been clearly practiced in the past; however much has been done to correct the unbridgeable and immutable differences in race, gender and class status in the United States. Rothenberg emphasizes, in the collection of essays, past views of Euro-Americans’ superiority in intelligence and abilities over darker skinned races. Throughout the history of the United States, discrimination against race and gender has been documented thus creating various classes according to race and gender. Racism has been defined as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2010).
There are misconceptions about the use of race because all humans fall in the category of homosapiens. The general public most often use race in a naïve or simplistic way to categorize or differentiate people from one another. Many scholars and anthropologists have taken the position that the concept of race is a socially constructed ideologyu . In other words, society and all its people created this term to make practical distinctions among people of different traits, characteristics, and geographic ancestry. This is where racial stereotyping may occur as a result of this practice.
The professor stated that the development of different racial groups was due to the theory of genetic drift; we all originally started in the same location and spread outward. This theory got me thinking about how we form racial groups on a smaller scale and how complex it truly is. Race and ethnic group labels in America are not clearly based on criteria that everyone understand, agree with, and can easily see. As a result, someone else may label you in a way that you consider wrong and very offensive. This can instantly create an obstacle when trying to communicate even if the slur was unintended.
I am going to explore the question, ‘Discuss the understanding of race in terms of the slavery debates before abolition. You may focus on the pro-slavery or abolitionist side.’ I believe that how people perceived and understood race was vital to the way that people understood different cultures and how slavery began. People who were pro-slavery and abolitionists had very different understandings on race: people who were pro-slavery thought it was acceptable to have black slaves as black people were not thought to be fully human, whereas abolitionists thought it was wrong to treat other human beings in this way. The understanding of race is a very important topic, as I believe that the way other races were viewed and understood is the root of slavery and is the reason why slavery began. In order to explore the question further, I have researched the background of slavery and why it began.
Final Essay Questions #1. Explain why anthropologists no longer think the race concept is the best way to understand human variation. There are many anthropologists that argue that race concept is not a scientifically useful term. The reason for this is because race concept is a social construction and race is a relative construct. Arbitrariness of classification varies from place to place and person to person.
Winant describes the new idea of racial hegemony as one that “operates in societies and institutions that explicitly condemn prejudice and discrimination” (128). How do racial mobility and racial inequality relate? Racial mobility is the ability to move up and down the racial scale, and racial inequality is the lack of equal treatments between groups. Racial mobility is not racism, but it can bring on racial inequality. Nikki S. Lee’s photograph portraying the Asian female among the black community furthermore supports Winant’s claim.
If I had to pick one I would move toward the eviormental approach to be more accurate. Race socially constructed and is something that is learned from those who are included in society. Bradley advances toward race and reasoning is in unity with the way we come to even know the definition of race. Even as the importance of race has been built by environmental surroundings of race, it is resistant and absorbed by environmental surroundings. I believe Bradley make s excellent points that fully support why race has become so important.
He provides readers with a definition of this term that may seem unfamiliar to many – “the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behaviour based on very narrow slices of experience”. The author goes on to discuss how these impressions can be changed with much concerted effort. The subject matter remains of current interest as the issues of racism, social inequality and stereotyping that are still very prevalent in societies of today come to the forefront when he states, “if you are a white person who would like to treat black people as equals in every way, it requires more than a simple commitment to equality. It requires that you change your life”. This statement may also suggest that while the article is written for a wide audience, the style is more geared towards the attitude of Caucasians to black minorities.
Race is nature and ethnicity is nurture; that is, birth characteristics versus cultural heritage” ("What Is the Difference"). However, there seems to be a tendency for people to substitute ethnicity for race "Some educators and researchers use ethnicity interchangeably with race because we believe they are still uncomfortable with race, racism and its role in education. But, if we abandon the concept of ‘race’ we also abandon discussions of power, domination and group conflict, economic exploitation, political power and powerlessness” (The Socially Constructed Nature of Race).
Racial Micro-aggressions against Minorities Jose P. Polanco Carlos Albizu University PSYM 523-A Racial Micro-aggressions against Minorities The term micro-aggressions are consider a brief everyday exchanges that send demeaning messages to certain individuals because of their group memberships. The nature of racism has evolve over time from the old fashioned overt expressions of White supremacy and racial hatred to the more subtle, ambiguous, and unintentional expressions called aversive racism. Because most White people associate racism with hate crimes and White supremacist groups, they are unaware how racism has taken on an invisible nature to the extent that they have lost the perception of unintentional racism towards people of color. White Americans believe that discrimination is on the decline, that racism is not a significant issue that has an impact in their behavior and performance. In contrast, Black Americans perceive that racism is a constant reality in their lives, White individuals continue to respond toward them.