The Impact that Race and Class has on Wealth America is a place of potential opportunity and success. There is a possibility of prosperity for everyone, no matter one’s race, social class, or ethnicity. However, success is more easily achievable for white Americans. People of color in America have struggled for centuries with housing, jobs and education all due to their race. Even though it is not just, white Americans have had the upper hand simply because of their skin color.
Professor Dorothy Roberts discussed her latest book Fatal Invention where she made references to how science, politics, and big business recreate race in the 21st Century. She discussed with Tavis Smiley the different incentives that are used in science, business as well as the Government to categorized race. Despite research that showed that the black race and the white race is only .1% genetically different from each other many are still making an argument that the races are very different and merit ongoing discussions In terms of commercial incentives, Professor Roberts believed that many products are produced based on the assumptions that you can divide the human species into biological groups call race. This was evident in the labeling
7) and laments the idea that science should be hindered by political correctness. Instead, he argues, because of the painful events of yesteryear and the common fear of what road racial genetics leads down, we have all but blinded ourselves to race entirely. In an effort to correct past wrongs, we have inadvertently overlooked an important factor in better understanding our own beginnings and how cultures and people around the world have evolved to modern times. Wade presents his argument with a myriad of facts and citations from prominent figures, lending credence to his point of view. He further points out that this field of study is often marginalized and ignored precisely because of the political connotations of the subject matter.
a. Race appears because people’s identities are assigned through it. This is a means of distinguishing a group and a means of control over it. The essence of society is that a small number of people exploit most people in the name of the development of human civilization, and race is the most powerful political weapon for them. b. Social construction is something or an event that is a meaningful to the society, it reveals how the social is constructed and how people are participating in it. c. Money is a kind of social construction, people accept the value of money and consider them as an essential part of the society.
Schwalbe writes: “many people think that they belong to a race and that races are visible, biological realities. But races, too, are human inventions” (Schwalbe, pg.22). Although this may be true, it does not make the concept of race less real. Because people choose to believe race is real, race is a social reality. Schwalbe also talks about how who a person is, depends on the social world that person grew up in.
The beginning of the book highlights the importance of race. Race was invented and assigned to individuals solely on their outward appearance. Most Americans unconsciously accept race as a product of Mother Nature. In reality, it has nothing to do with your genetics.
While some argue that race is a biological concept, many have rejected that view and instead view race as a social construct. This revised viewpoint stems from the
Sociologists define race as a social construct because society has classified various groups of people based on physical characteristics such as skin color under the assumption that other characteristics would also be similar. This had occurred without any biological proof of correlation. This has also led to faulty belief systems such as racism, ethnocentrism, and the propensity for stereotyping. Fortunately, the intermarriages between races and subsequent procreation has helped cracked the facade of racial differences, at least those that aren't manufactured by society. I have a biracial niece whose father is black and mother is white.
The sentencing disparity for drug use by race is disproportionate for African Americans because of The War on Drugs. Matthew Lassiter (2015) explains, “In 1951, Harry Anslinger, the commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, collaborated with senate of criminal investigations to target black ‘dope peddlers’ who were luring pretty white blondes into drug addiction”(2015:128). According to Lassiter (2015), Anslinger believed that peddlers, who destroyed teenagers’ lives, required the most sever punishment (2015:129). Using this rhetoric, presidents like Nixon and Reagan would shape the way drug laws are enforced.
According to the film race is a biological "myth" and as outdated as belief that the sun revolved around the earth. Race is a concept that was invented to categorize the perceived biological, social, and cultural differences between human groups. Based on modern genetic science that can decode the genetic puzzle of DNA there is no significant genetic or biological differences between the races. Race is an artificial construct imposed by the ruling classes to justify first slavery and then segregation. One of the main findings concerning the genetic make-up of the students in the course was that skin color really is only skin deep.
One very important thing that this article covered is that race is a social construct, but it being a social construct does not make it any less real. I really liked the line “It’s real in the same way that Wednesday is real.” Oftentimes people will hear race called a social construct, and interpret it as saying that race is not real and therefore does not matter. But race is very real. It is just important to recognize the ways in which it is real and the ways it is not.
Coates explains to the audience that “race is the child of racism, not the father.” This quote, though originally confusing, is the epitome of this idea; race is not a natural or inherent category to define people with, but a tool created through the practices of racism and oppression. For instance, white people “had a ‘race’ before being ‘white’”; they had a culture, a background, and an ethnicity such as Frankish, German, or Italian. However, the grouping and division of race into a black and white issue was created solely from the hatred of one group, African-Americans, and the rising up of another, white people. As Coates expresses, “hate gives identity,” and with the oppression of black individuals being an ongoing issue for centuries in this country, the separation of “black” and “white” as races were the result.
Among anthropologists it has become increasingly clear that the concept of race having a biological basis is fundamentally flawed. There a number of flaws with this concept of race. One issue is that features attributed to race, such as skin color, very across the globe in a clinal fashion rather than in uniform groups. Another issue is that there is more in-group variation within races than there is variation between races. Finally, human variation is non-concordant.
Race, nationality and ethnicity Race and ethnicity are seen as form of an individual’s cultural identity. Researchers have linked the concept of “race” to the discourses of social Darwinism that in essence is a categorization of “types” of people, grouping them by biological and physical characteristics, most common one being skin pigmentation. Grouping people based on their physical traits has lead in time to the phenomenon of “racialization” (or race formation), as people began to see race as more of a social construct and not a result or a category of biology.
I do believe that someone’s race and gender influenced our society. For example, our society stereo type women in the work industry. Our society has divided gender’s role in the work industry. Where women are expected to work as a server or a teacher while men are expected to take a more masculine role such as an engineer or a construction worker.
