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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.
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: 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In later years, many European scientists defined race by separating Homo Sapiens into three to six different groups. * Australoid: those from Australia, Melanesian islands * Caucasoid: Europe, North Africa, South west Asia * Mongoloid: East Asia, Siberia, the Americas * Negroid: Central and Southern Africa * Native Americans * Polynesians The scientific justification for these six groups was that members of these groups shared similar physical characteristics and originated in a particular region of the world. During the nineteenth century theories of race were advanced both by the scientific community and in the popular daily and periodical press. One idea that was taken into belief was racial standing based on skull size and features. The human skull was us...
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.
In order to completely understand how race was fabricated, we must first know what exactly race is considered to be. So, what is race? Race is a biological grouping within human species possessing genetically transmitted traits sufficient to characterize it as a distinct human type. Essentially, race groups people together who have similar and distinct traits. However, the reason race doesn’t exist is because there is no such thing as a distinct type of human based on a particular set of traits. A widespread majority of people see race as
According to Alan Goodman, a Hampshire College biological anthropology professor, it is “an old ideology that tends to separate us out”. The use of race has been used throughout human history as a means of grouping the population. Grouping of the world’s population can be seen as far back as the Roman empire, though the form of grouping used during that time was believed to be based on tribal or familial associations. Alongside Rome, the use of grouping based on familial relation could be seen in ancient cultures as far east as China. An example of ‘racial’ separation can be seen in on of the worlds most widely read books, the Bible. In the Bible there is a clear separation between those who are Jews and those who were gentiles. The separation of groups in this time period is based off of religio...