Race The Power Of An Illusion Essay

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An illusion is something that is likely to be wrongly perceived or interpreted by the senses. There are many illusions but by far one that has had the most effect on the world is race. This societal construct is a way for individuals to discern who is part of the group they ascribe to and who is not. This may have had benefits early in the history of humans where visual differentiation between a friend and an enemy was pivotal but over history it has grown to be much more. In the video Race: the Power of an Illusion the producers delve into how society has come to believe that visual differentiation and placement of people into different races has no scientific backing as well as showing the flaws that come from such belief that there is …show more content…

All the students that were asked stated that they were probably most closely similar to people in their race. While watching this unknowingly my ethnocentrism started to project. Being a male of Afro-Caribbean/Hispanic decent I pride myself in knowing that I am of a mixed background and try to not base a persons race of off outward appearance. My belief that I transcended the negative reach of race was abruptly halted near the end of the movie when an individual who throughout the video I believed to be strictly Asian, turned out to be half Korean and half Jamaican. This proved a point made earlier in the video. To oust this biological myth requires a paradigm shift in perspective of the caliber of finding out the world is not flat. As the video went on they students came to find out that race is has no genetic backing and seemed to be shocked by what their results showed. Through out the video they gave examples of how race is an idea ascribed to biology. The thing that struck me was that I had heard some of those very comments. Living in Oxford, MS for two years of my life I have actually came across individuals that believed due to me being black I had “an extra muscle in my thighs so I could run a way from lions and

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