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Race is a social construct article critical review
Biological concept of race
Is race socially constructed
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Over the years, there has been the question that would always move around race. Rather these questions would be good or bad, they all move around one thing and one thing only which is race itself. However, is race really a thing or just something that the world made up? It has gotten to the point that this question will never leave as there has been always two ways of looking at it along with beliefs. Truth be told, race isn’t really a thing, but it has always been used as a scapegoat for almost everything. To a point, one will say race is real as people are from different places and different skin color. This is true, but yet one has to remember that every person is human, but this world has come to the term that race is nothing more than …show more content…
It’s also something scientist would often wonder the same thing until the facts were clear enough for them to understand that race is nothing more than a myth as it was said in “ Newsweek.” Over the years it has been known through science that there is no biological reality to the human race as it was said in “Newsweek.” However, there would be times when race would be used in the field of science but has been known in a different way. In the reading of “Scientific American,” it has said that researchers will acknowledge that there would be a few areas where race as a construct might still be useful for research in the field of science. Things such as a political and social for instance instead of what many are used to such as biological and variable as they are known as the wrong way of looking at people of different …show more content…
That race alone would be nothing big or too small as it's known to be the human race itself. Science has shown that by the genetics that we are all made up of the same things that make us ourselves. To a point, if one put everyone together, there would be a lot of things the same instead of making groups where the only thing that would be different is the heritage. Now looking at the Christians beliefs, humans were all created in God’s image, but sometimes that won’t always get people on the same page. Which only leads to nothing more, but the tale of the great flood. In Genesis chapter seven of the “New King James Version,” it will tell the story of Noah, his wife, his sons, and his sons’ wives all going into an ark full of animals to save themselves from the flood that would wipe out everything on the Earth. Now skip ahead and go to chapter nine and ten of the “New King James Version” where God will say to Noah and his family to spread out on the lands. This is only one way people can look at to tell what race is fully not a thing and if they aren’t religious they can always go by the
Culture, Not Race, Explains Human Diversity, Mark Nathan Cohen, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 17, 1998, pp.B4-B5. The term race refers to a biological subdivision of a species. At one time, scientists held that there were as few as three such subdivisions in the species Homo sapiens: Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid. Mark Anthony Cohen points out that this is an antiquated view, yet it lingers as a common belief in society. Mark Nathan Cohen makes an interesting point in his article “Culture, Not Race, Explains Human Diversity”. While the article does deal wholly in the realm of the opinion, it is supported by numerous scientific facts. In fact, Cohen’s usual method of drawing in a reader is to make a blanket statement and then “beef it up” with several scientific facts.
In America, essentially everyone is classified in terms of race in a way. We are all familiar with terms such as Caucasian, African-American, Asian, etc. Most Americans think of these terms as biological or natural classifications; meaning that all people of a certain race share similarities on their D.N.A. that are different and sets that particular race apart from all the other races. However, recent genetic studies show that there’s no scientific basis for the socially popular idea that race is a valid taxonomy of human biological difference. This means that humans are not divided into different groups through genetics or nature. Contrary to scientific studies, social beliefs are reflected through racial realism. Racial realists believe that being of a particular race does not only have phenotypical values (i.e. skin color, facial features, etc.), but also broadens its effects to moral, intellectual and spiritual characteristics.
Race: the descendants of a common ancestor; distinct variety of human beings; lineage. These are the definitions the dictionary gives for race. However, what really is race? And what causes human beings to dislike a specific race? There are many who disagree as to what the answers to these questions are. I would like to discuss two specific writers that argue about this issue, W.E.B. Du Bois and Manning Marable.
If race was “real”, then racial classifications would be constant all around the world, but someone considered black in the United States might be considered white in Brazil. In addition, racial categorizations in census forms vary widely between countries and across time in the same country. It is important to note that, in 2003, as part of the Human Genome Project, researchers concluded that “3 billion base pairs of genetic letters in humans were 99.9 percent identical in every person”. Which leads me to say that race is a social construct. It is important to explore this further to better understand the capacity race has to affect other parts of life.
In society, race clearly affects one’s life chances. These are the chances of getting opportunities and gaining experience for progression. The social construction of race is based on privileges and availability of resources. Looking at society and the formation of race in a historical context, whites have always held some sort of delusional belief of a “white-skin privilege.” This advantage grants whites an advantage in society whether one desires it or not. This notion is often commonly referred to as reality.
Race has no biological meaning. There is only one human race; there are no subspecies, no single defining characteristic, traits, or even gene, separates one “race” from another. Instead of being a biological concept, race is a social construct, and a relatively modern one at that. It was created to give light-skinned Europeans an advantage by making the white race superior and all others inferior. Throughout its history, the concept of race has served this purpose well.
Through research of DNA samples, scientists have been able to declare that race is not biologically constructed due to the similarities between human genes. Nevertheless, in reality, people still emphasized on biological aspects such as skin color, or hair texture to categorize others into different races. This in turn, denied the true identity of race, which it is culturally constructed. Ethnicity, by definition is also culturally constructed, therefore it greatly resemble race. There is no real clear line to distinct the two.
Social Construction Race Race has been one of the most outstanding events in the United States all the way from the 1500s up until now. The concept of race has been socially constructed in a way that is broad and difficult to understand. Social construction can be defined as the set of rules determined by society’s urges and trends. The rules created by society play a huge role in racialization, as the U.S. creates laws to separate the English or whites from the nonwhites. Europeans, Indigenous People, and Africans were all racialized and victimized for various reasons.
Race, in the common understanding, draws upon differences not only of skin color and physical attributes but also of language, nationality, and religion. Race categories are often used as ethnic intensifiers, with the aim of justifying the exploitation of one group by another. Race is an idea that has become so fixed in American society that there is no room for open-mindedness when challenging the idea of racial categories. Over the years there has been a drastic change with the way the term "race" is used by scientists. Essentially, there is a major difference between the biological and sociological views of race.
The concept of race is an ancient construction through which a single society models all of mankind around the ideal man. This idealism evolved from prejudice and ignorance of another culture and the inability to view another human as equal. The establishment of race and racism can be seen from as early as the Middle Ages through the present. The social construction of racism and the feeling of superiority to people of other ethnicities, have been distinguishably present in European societies as well as America throughout the last several centuries.
Race: The Power of an Illusion was an interesting 3 part film. After watching this, it made me questioned if race was really an illusion or not. It is absolutely taboo to think that the one thing that separates people the most may be a myth in itself. “We can 't find any genetic markers that are in everybody of a particular race and in nobody of some other race. We can 't find any genetic markers that define race.” (Adelman and Herbes Sommers 2003). Racism is something created in the U.S made to create supremacy for the creator. Racism is not just the way someone thinks, it is something that has is manifested in our society to separate us and can be traced to our everyday activities.
Racism is often considered a thing of the past, with its manifestation rarely being acknowledged in the United States today. Race: The Power of an Illusion, is a documentary that addresses the legacy of racism through its significance in the past, and its presence in society today. To understand racism, it is vital to understand the concept of race. Race is a social invention, not a biological truth. This can be observed through the varying classifications of race in different cultures and time periods. For instance, in the United States, race has long been distinguished by skin color. In nineteenth century China, however, race was determined by the amount of body hair an individual had. Someone with a large amount of facial hair, for example,
Race is everywhere. As westernized individuals, we are collectively raised to see race in other human beings, in hairstyles, music, and almost every aspect of our day-to-day lives. However, race isn’t as black and white as we make it out to seem because race does not actually exist. Then how do we see race, you may ask? Well, this is because race is socially constructed to oppress certain groups of people.
Jason Antrosio states that race is a social construction and that it draws attention to how the social, legal, political categories are used to define “race” within society. In America, the perception of racial and ethnic groups is all determined by the media we use. Media reinforces stereo types of ethnic groups and races and overall determines the way we classify individuals talents, likes and dislikes, and personality just by what we see and hear when that is totally not the case. Ethnicity gives us the ability to change because we can reject our own ethnicity and embrace another. Your race is something is biological and cannot be changed.
There is but one race, the human race. The English term ‘race’ is believed to originate from the Spanish word raza, which means ‘breed’ or ‘stock’, according to ___(find the source used in the article under the file AJHGv77p519)_____. People use race to define other groups, the separation of groups are based largely on pigmentation of the skin and physical features. Race is truly only skin deep, there are no true biological separations between two ‘racial’ groups. Scientifically speaking there is more variation between single local groups than there is between two large, global groups; the human variation is constantly altering. The majority of today’s anthropologists agree that race is a form of social categorization, not the separation of groups based on biological characteristics that has been used throughout human history.