Brian Jones The Social Construction Of Race Summary

On the surface level Brian Jones’s “The Social Construction of Race” article seems to simply make the case for the social construction of race. He opens with Plessy v. Ferguson to explain how the courts determined that race was or could be considered a form of property, and that it is valuable. Furthermore, this after this case, “whiteness” needed to be define or create the white race. Then he debunks the scientific research that was used to link biology to race by explaining the historical and geographical elements that produce different complexities therefore illustrating how racial differences came about and how race was constructed. The underlining argument in this article is that blackness was a constructed and imposed identity given to

people of color in America, regardless of how they self-identify. He opens this argument by explaining that people use the term race to refer to racism.

For example, Amadou Diallo, an immigrant from West Africa was shot in New York City in 1999 because of how society defined him. He was not seen as an immigrant, he was categorized as black; blackness was put on him, resulting in his death. Barbra and Karen Fields explain that Diallo was shot because of oppression, but instead of addressing racism, society will focus on the race using phrases like, “They shot him because he is black,” instead of phrases like “He was shot because the shooter is a racist.” This allows him to then illustrate to the audience how race may not be real biologically, as is was a created, but it is real in its consequences, meaning that it is used as the ideological framework to “justify wars… and subjugation of all kinds of people” (Jones

5).
Is it convincing?
The opening argument about the social construction of race is was convincing, both because the ridiculousness of the biological construction of race and because of the historical evidence to discredit the counter argument.

Furthermore, his argument about blackness as a constructed and imposed identity often “put on” people of color, whether they identify as black, African American, or black is particularly convincing because elucidates how race is a construction or a perception that others place on you, and the only way that perception is legitimized is through its consequences. Historically, Jones runs done the historical construction of blackness which started in Virginia. With high demand of human labor for the mass production of tobacco, settlers tried making Native Americans and even other settlers indentured servants, but when that failed they began kidnapping Africans, and using their skin color as the mark of slavery. He highlights that there was a language shift from “free and slave” to “white and black.” What is interesting to me was the language switch and also, what and who the settlers or planters tried to enslave. Noticing that they tried to enslave Native Americans, and even themselves indicates to me that, blackness might have meant more than just the Africans. In fact, Jones notes that the Bacon Rebellion was a turning point because “whites” and “blacks” banded together against the planters, suggesting to me that race was not the only “problem.” To suppress

the rebellion the planters, use the law to categorize people. This gave the other whites the right to own a gun and property, vote, and so on, but before this divide, my question would be, “who all was considered “black”?” because poor white had to be given their right too.
What is the relevancy?
Jones does offer an optimistic kind of ending suggesting that to fight racism we must fight for specific reparation but put most of our efforts toward dismantling the fundamental inequality that underlines all of American life. To further explain this challenged he describes the two-major argument surrounding Affirmative Action. First, that Affirmative Action is necessary because it undermines whiteness by advantaging people of color and second, Affirmative Action highlights black success stories in order to denigrate everybody else. The second argument is particularly relevant today because during Obama’s presidency people claimed that racism was dead, or that this was the age of colorblindness, and after Trump was elected, the scapegoating began by using statements like “I’m not racist I didn’t vote for Trump” which allowed quasi racist behavior to become a justification because it was not as overt as the new president. Jones suggests that we stop the recreations of racism like “colorblindness,” and that we fight for reparations without allowing our successes to impair our vision of what still needs to be done.