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Race and ethnicity are two words used very often in everyday speech interchangeably, thus making it seem like they mean the same thing. However, there is a significant difference between the two. According to Kerry Ferris and Jill Stein, race is “based on real or perceived biological differences between groups of people” (Ferris & Stein 2012). Ethnicity on the other hand is “based on common language, religion, nationality, history, or another cultural factor” (Ferris & Stein 2012). They’re social constructs, meaning that they’re concepts/ideas created and maintained by people who agree that they exist. All society’s have a tendency to categorize and identify people based on these two socially defined categories. Doing this creates a system of classification or categorization that leads to inequality. Societal resources such as wealth, power, privilege, and opportunity are dispersed according to this system of stratification (Ferris & Stein 2012). Such powerful social constructs always influence the members of society in some way.

As a child, my family never really talked about race to me as much as what I would assume other families did with their children. The main way that I first learned about race was when I watched television or went to preschool. Once I started feeling the urge to ask questions about why other people look different compared to (me physically) was when they started to talk about it a little more. They told me that there are different kinds of people in the world and that everyone looks different, yet some people that look different belong to the same group of people. They gave me a few examples of what these categories were and I eventually saw more examples as I started moving up through grade sch...

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... division of humankind that covers many groups of peoples such as Western Asia, Europe, India, North Africa, etc. I accept this because it’s my lineage. It should be noted that like other people, my family and I don’t go around everywhere telling people about our race or ethnicity all the time. We use it when asked what we are, depending on the usefulness of it in a particular situation, or when it’s relevant on specific occasions (situational and symbolic ethnicity).

There’s never a “time out” when it comes to talking about race and ethnicity. “We project our identities in interactions with others constantly” (Ferris & Stein 2012). We will constantly “read others” with cues given off by them, thus constructing identities “by what we project and recognize” (Ferris & Stein 2012). All of this leads to the conclusion that race is an interactional accomplishment.