Race In Society

Humans define race by how they conceive and categorize different social realities. Thus, race is often referred to as a social construct. The differences in skin color and facial characteristics have led most of society to classify humans into groups instead of individuals. These constructs affect us all, and they often result in situations where majority racial groups cause undue suffering to those that are part of the minority. The understanding of race as a social construct is best illustrated by the examination of racial issues within our own culture, specifically those that have plagued the history of the United States.

Race is a hot topic in our world. We all think we know what race is. After all, we are constantly being bombarded with it whether it be from media, politics, or sports. The truth is that race does not revolve around the idea of biological traits or characteristics. It is a modern concept that we as a society have created to divide people into categories. I will argue that race is socially constructed from a biological, political history, and sociological standpoint, and how it may impact other areas of our society.

Race is something that is in all of us. Everyday we see how it affects us in both positive and negative ways. Looking back on what race and gender has been, we have come a long way in creating more equality throughout all of the people that make up our country.

In The Social Construction of Race, Ian F. Haney Lopez defines race as a social construct that is constantly changing its meaning due to the fickle nature of society. Lopez believes that this fickleness stems from a social climate formed by a variety of factors such as human economic interest, current events, and ideology. There are certain racial definitions however, that have remained mostly the same despite efforts to bring attention to the offensiveness and immorality of such discriminatory thinking. These stereotypes are oftentimes negative and apply to members of minority races, which end up perpetuating themselves into various cultural outlets of society including the media and film. Through the use of such popular forms of entertainment, the definitions of a race remain largely unchanged as future generations remain exposed to these racial classifications.

Race is a social-constructed terminology where it categorizes people into groups that share certain distinctive physical characteristics such as skin color. However, race and racial identity is unstable, unfixed and constantly shifting, as race, typically, is a signifier of prevalent social conflict and interest. Although, many, particularly anthropologists and sociologists, argue in the aforementioned point of view, some – mainly white population -- believe that racial characteristics are biologically inherited.

Today, social scientists refer to race as a “social construct” and there is no shortage of definitions that refer to race as a social construct. (Gabbidon & Greene, 2013, p.2) “Race and ethnicity are social constructions because their meanings are derived by focusing on arbitrary characteristics that a given society deems socially important… and are social products based on cultural values not scientific facts. (Gallagher, 1997, p.2). It is my firm belief that race is something man made in definition and as such so is the results related to racial issues.

Race is defined in our textbook as a group of people who share a set of characteristics- typically these characteristics are described as physical ones, common bloodlines. We often think as race in relation to racism, which is a belief that members of a separate race possess different and unequal traits coupled with the power to restrict freedoms based on those differences. Racism is connected with three different keys in belief, that humans are in different groups in relation to bloodlines and physical types, that these

Throughout history and across the different cultures, people socially construct ideas of race. All races of people are not biologically different because there is no genes or gene clusters similar to all people of one race, but because people have similar visual traits humans have categorized people as being different. Due to these differences, societies have been known to show tendencies based on the socially constructed races and people develop personal views about the various races from past experiences. In large cities in the United States there are areas where the African American population is more dense, which shows that people draw imaginary boundaries due to race. An example of how the social construction of race is that in the United

Whether or not we claim that race is a socially constructed or a legitimate area of scientific inquiry, it all comes down to the primary idea that we all belong to the human race, regardless of skin color, facial features, height, weight, or any other specific physical characteristics. It is truly unforgiving that many individuals all across the United States have evolved with the mentality of this social and political category of race which has been deeply rooted in our brains, surprisingly, without in actuality realizing that everybody in the entire world is closely related to one another. Nonetheless, sociologists and gender scholars, such as Dr. Dorothy Roberts and W.E.B Du Bois, argue that race is a social and political concept and does

Race is one of many key factors that influence the historic relationship between classes, ethnicity, immigrants, bodies, and the state, specifically when it comes to notions of citizenship. The articles, Perils of Degeneration, Hygiene and "The Indian Problem", Nationalizing Children through Schools and Hygiene, Puffy, Ugly, Slothful and Inert’, and The Vice Trust, all point to the function of popular perceptions of race in society, specifically how individuals are classified based on certain racial markers. All of these articles surround the theme in which notions of race influenced political and social responses in both the United States and Latin America.

All through history, the label that is associate with Black people have become a prevailing discourse that explicitly racialized black people, even today. There are specific characteristics that are related with being black and are disseminate to the public and are represented as truth. Williams Rose (2002) argues, “As the color white is associated with everything good … so Blacks has, through the ages, carried associations with all that is bad and low… the Negro is believed to be stupid immoral, diseased, lazy, incompetent, and dangerous to the white man’s virtue and social order “(p.181). Blackness have become objectified in public spaces, they are view as a threat on the street of Toronto, surrounding areas and even in the criminal

Race can be described as a social construct because it was developed to describe the differences in individuals and find a way of quantifying one's existence. According to Schaefer, the acceptance of race in a society as a legitimate category allows racial hierarchies to emerge to the benefit of the dominant “races.” Race was invented to attempt to differentiate each other and as a way of setting hierarchical order in the world. Race is a social construct designed by a dominant group in society.

Is power in our society based on race? The answer to that question is yes. People all over our country have to deal with racism and not having the advantages that whites have. Even the privileged citizens of color are discriminated. Therefore, yes, power in our society is based on race.

Sociologists argue that race was pretty much made up by society. They feel that in the early days, dating back to the time of Greece, people used race to explain the different class levels. Scientists say that humans are 99.9% alike, which means the build up of your genes are 99.9% similar to the person next to you. There is that less than 1% that changes the way you look. Otherwise we are all build similar internally. Some people say by having all the different races in the world, it helps better explain the different levels of wealth. There is always that 1% that goes against the grain so to speak. But for instance, New York City is broken up into many different boroughs, and each area there seems to be different communities. There is China

The concept of race and the meanings associated with the term have continuously changed and evolved throughout history. Many negative connotations have been associated with the word race and these are evident as one reflects on the historical origins of the term. Commonly the term race is closely connected to the notion of ‘racism.’ Racism is a specific form of prejudice which focuses on physical variations between people. It describes the ideological belief that a person, or groups of people can be classified into ‘races’ which can be ranked in terms of superiority and inferiority (Spoonley, 1988:4). Giddens defines racism as “the attribution of characteristics of superiority or inferiority to a population sharing certain physically inherited characteristics” (1997:584). This supports the idea that racism is a manner of prejudice or animosity against people who have different physical characteristics. It is in virtue of circumstances such as these that Anthropologists find it necessary to make a distinction between the concepts of race and ethnicity.