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Essay on understanding racism
The difference between race and ethnicity essay
The difference between race and ethnicity essay
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Blood, sweat, and tears “What race you?” You and i, as ignorant as this question may seem, have probably been asked that question more times than we can imagine. However it’s until recently that i’ve learned that is the wrong question to ask. According to John J. Macionis, race is “a socially constructed category of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society consider important.” So one should ask, “what is your ethnicity?” since ethnicity refers to a shared cultural heritage (Macionis 340). It wasn’t until more than a century ago did scientists invent “race” to try to organize the world’s physical diversity into three racial types. Now the fact of the matter is that their are far more than just three “races” …show more content…
Firstly, “the most lethal and toxic form of racism in America is committed daily by white people who consider themselves to be decent, honest, loving, and caring folks.” This statement is true and false. It is false to say for just the white people to wake up from this blindness. It is all ethnicities (sure, mostly white people) that need to wake up and see that this country - this world - has a problem with always turning a blind eye to social injustice. Plurality can never be possible if this continues to happen. Secondly, “prejudice and discrimination between people of color is NOT the same - it is fundamentally different from - prejudice and discrimination between white people and people of color.” This idea - to say that being prejudice and discriminating between people of color and between white people and people of color - is the same. Being prejudice and acting on that thought by discriminating is the same whether you’re considered “white”, “black”, “brown”, “yellow”, or “green” just because two people of opposing skin colors discriminate between each other doesn’t mean it’s worse or better than two people of the same skin colors. They are both morally and socially unjust. Just because the opposing skin colors have a long and bloody history doesn’t make the people with the same skin color any different; they are both going through prejudice and discrimination. That’s like saying the bully is allowed to get punched by the bullied in the face because he was bullied. It’s not ok because if the bullied were to have punched the bully that “bullied” has not become the bully and the bully has become the “bullied” all because the bullied stooped to the bully 's level by punching him/her back. The same concept is applied to the third and final topic; “racism is essentially a white problem.” To say that racism is a white problem is technically being prejudice against the white people,
This variation has no substantial ties to skin color, but does show genetic variation from different geographical locations in the world. These variations are not categorized in groups of what people call race, but rather ethnicity. Ethnicity, defined by Stephen Cornell, is a sense of common ancestry based on cultural attachments, past linguistic heritage, religious affiliations, claimed kinship, or some physical traits. Race, as most people catoragize it, encompuses many ethnicitys. Ethnicities are local populations, this makes sense that they would tend to have less genetic variation compared to each other then the rest of the world as they would share genetic adaptations resulting from the environment they live in. This can include skin color, but can also
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.
According to Newman in Sociology: The Architecture of Everyday Life, a social class “consists of people who occupy similar positions of power, privilege, and prestige” (Newman, 2012). Someone’s position in a social class can affect “virtually every aspect of their lives, including political preferences, sexual behavior, religious affiliation, diet, and life expectancy” (Newman, 2012). The social class that was represented in the film was the middle-class. The show, Pleasantville, portrays the 1950s in which the wife would stay at home cooking and cleaning while the father works. This show holds similar views to the show, Leave it to Beaver. The movie begins
After watching the documentary “Race: The Power of an Illusion, Episode 1: The Difference Between Us” I believe the conclusion of the film is that Race has no biological base or significance, rather race was created by humans and then ascribed to biology in order to explain why certain groups of people shared similar traits. Throughout the film there are many pieces of evidence to support this conclusion. In the following paragraphs I will give an example and explain each of the four types of evidence which are all utilized in the film. The four types of evidence are, analogical, anecdotal, testimonial, and statistical.
Race is and always has been an important topic in the history of the United States. The focus on race and how it affects society came to prominence during the slave trade. Clearly when you have one race claiming superiority over another race, especially to the extent of establishing ownership over one another, it is quite obvious how significant the concept of race really is in American society. Progress was made when the US abolished slavery. The problem is, however, that racism didn’t die when slavery did. The difference being, racism is not clearly laid out in American society today. This doesn’t mean, however, that the new “hidden racism” cannot be seen in our society. One example of this can be seen in the Rocky movie series, starring actor Sylvester Stallone. What can the Rocky series tell us about subtle, underlying racism in post-slavery American society? Turns out this series can tell us quite a bit. See the racism is not clear in the Rocky movies, just as it is not clear in American society. Through different scenes and aspects of these films, one can see the labeling of African Americans as villains or enemies as well as the limited mobility for African Americans in the US today.
I watched the 1989 film Do the Right Thing produced, written and directed by Spike Lee. As the movie progressed, I identified with the character Tina because she too was a Puerto Rican. I did not realize that my ethnic identity was so salient but this makes sense because it is something you are faced with every day. By this I mean, some social identities can be changeable such as one’s religious preference, but someone's ethnicity cannot. Growing up, I constantly heard Spanish being spoken in my home, I noticed my meals were different than my friends, and cultural aspects such as a tight knit family were very familiar to me. All of these characteristics led to the development of my identity and thus why I can relate to Tina’s character. For
All through time, the world has been racist and intolerant of people different from themselves. Countless millions have suffered due to the bigotry of people that couldn't understand change or differences among one another. There was a time when any soul that wasn't blue eyed and blonde haired in Germany, anyone with darker skin where immediately classed as inferior and not human. Even now, when you are not aware, racism is still a considerable problem. But sometimes it isn't one person being racist against another, but rather one person being racist against them self. The movie crash shows good examples of how racism against oneself, caused by fear and misunderstanding, is just as malevolent and evil as racism against another person. Fear is what makes people act racist. Farhad is one of many examples in the movie of a person who recognizes his own race and paralyzes himself through his own fear. Farhad believes that since he is Persian he is immediately being persecuted against and cheated. He flips out at the gun shop when the owner was insulting him which just furthers his fear of Americans. After the events on 9/11, which are referenced a lot in the movie, Farhad thinks that anyone who is Middle Eastern isn't welcome in America. Even after the gun shop owner was rude; his shop was destroyed by racist people who hated him. It is this same fear of being cheated because of his race that makes him very untrusting to people he doesn't know. He calls a lock smith to come fix his door because it won't lock. He immediately thinks that Daniel is trying to cheat him and steal money from him just because of his past endeavors.
Do the Right Thing is about each character’s decision to do right or not, and what happens when one person’s decision collides with that of another. This film does not take sides; it provides an objective view of a black Brooklyn neighborhood in the 1980s and the events of a hot, summer day. But these characters aren 't just about prejudices. The director uses several different methods in order to portray different ideologies concerning race. He is able to do this through character development, setting design, cinematography, clothing, and props. It is truly remarkable to watch how all of those shadings come into play by the time the film reaches its breathless conclusion. Good intentions go wrong among the characters. Decisions are often
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 the past, races were identified by the imposition of discrete boundaries upon continuous and often discordant biological variation. The concept of race is therefore a historical construct and not one that provides either valid classification or an explanatory process. Popular everyday awareness of race is transmitted from generation to generation through cultural learning. Attributing race to an individual or a population amounts to applying a social and cultural label that lacks scientific consensus and supporting data. While anthropologists continue to study how and why humans vary biologically, it is apparent that human populations differ from one another much less than do populations in other species because we use our cultural, rather than our physical differences to aid us in adapting to various environments.
The United States has come a long way since the proverbial era of slavery that brought blatant, public, and violent discrimination against colored individuals. Also, must not limit our view of racism to just violent acts or we will miss the true identity of racism. Moreover, there are many dilemmas and problematic notions that reveal remaining hatred towards non-whites. We often incur behavior that we shrug off because they are seen as normal thought processes, but we need to examine, question and criticize ourselves, what we accept, and the way others conduct themselves. Three fallacies on racism that have been manifested over the minds of many are the Tokenistic, Ahistorical, and Individualistic fallacy. The aforementioned fallacies must
To begin the film talk about an African American society and how they are begin treated among the white people. It starts of with an African American woman named Sylvia Landry whose a well educated school teacher in the south. The story evolved around Sylvia how she want to save the school from begin shutdown, and how she must depart the school on a journey to the north to raise money for the school before it close. Before she left for her journey, she had a talk with her fiancee, Conrad, who portrayed as an aggressive and abusive to her and Alma, Sylvia cousin. So far in the film it portrayed African American male as aggressive personality toward their family and same colored race to show dominance, but once they're out of their comfort zone in society, they try to be more modernize like the white people to blend in.
Racism is a huge issue that has effected society and has caused division amongst races for many decades. Straight Outta Compton is a 2015 blockbuster movie on the rap group NWA. The film showcases the rise of the rappers and how they were treated differently based on their race. The film was directed by F. Gary Gray and starred Jason Mitchell who plays Eric “Eazy E” Wright, O’Shea Jackson Jr. who plays his father “Ice Cube”, Corey Hawkins who plays Andre “Dr. Dre” Young, Aldis Hodge who plays Lorenzo “MC Ren” Patterson, and Neil Brown Jr. who plays Antoine “DJ Yella” Carraby. As it can be noticed early on in the film, an approach is taken to address how some members of society were treated unequally. According to Batey (2015) to make the story
Race is a term that references on differences such as, facial characteristics, skin color, and other related characteristics. Race is not in reference to genetic make up. A feature of race as a social construct is that it down plays the extent to which sectors of population may form a discrete ethnic group. Based on specific characteristics race makes up a person and differs within groups. In other words race is a large group of people distinguished from others on the basic of a common heritage or physical trait.
Before I moved to the United States, I lived in the Philippines as a child. While I was living in the Philippines, I was aware of my nationality and my culture. Secondly, almost everyone I knew, including my family had similar religion and beliefs. After I moved to the United States is when I began to learn the differences of race or other type of ethnicities. Growing up in the United States have thought me the different definition of race. While growing up, some people have defined race as the color of someone’s skin or physical differences while others defined race as people who shares the same values or beliefs. The definition of race “in the American Heritage Dictionary is any group of people united or classified together on the basis of