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Racism in America
The Construction of an Institution For hundreds of years, it has been "truth" that the races were biologically different. The differences that separated society were based on scientifically based genetic differences that gave reason for the separation of races. However based on recent findings, it is known that this is not the case. In 1974 Richard Lewontin dispelled this myth with a study he did that proved that there are no genetic differences between races. In fact he discovered if anything, there were more differences within the "races" then between the different races. Why then, do we still have use for different races? Why is racism still rampant in American society? The reason is that although race is not founded through science, this institution of American society is merely an obsolete combination of historical, social, and cultural construction.
Historically our physical differences supplied reason to separate into races. In doing this we see the emergence of races. Europeans marked individuals that looked different from them and used this difference as a justification for their reasoning that these individuals were inferior to them. To support their claims, there was "scientific research" done to explain our differences. These differences were said to be biological. As early as the 1800s scientists purported these ideas to be true. One doctor believed that blacks suffered from a form of leprosy. Because science is said to be so exact and indisputable, Americans held these theories to be truth and used them to construct the different classifications of race. These "biological" findings provided the basis for the most corrupt institution in America: racism. Through the classifying of people of color as inferior due to genetic reasoning, provided whites with an excuse to dominate. This social issue divided the country and served as a weapon to keep people of color in the minority and denied them of any economic or educational power that was necessary to survive in America.
This social phenomenon further abused the "biological" differences to further oppress people of color. Race provided the perfect method of domination in America. To the dismay of racists around the country, a scientist decided to reevaluate the "genetic" differences between the races, that had been so cleverly constructed.
In the novel, Vonnegut introduces the reader to his protagonist, Billy Pilgrim. The story uses time travel to give the reader a glimpse into different segments of Billy’s life, not just the war part. Vonnegut (1969) writes, “Billy is spastic in time, has no control over where he is going next, and the trips aren’t necessarily fun.” Vonnegut (1969) writes that Billy first became “unstuck in time” during the war. After his regiment was destroyed by the Germans, Billy was a dazed wanderer behind enemy lines (Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five). During that era, Billy’s condition would have been called “shell shock” or “battle fatigue” (McClellend). Today, veterans that are suffering from psychiatric issues are diagnosed with PTSD. After reading Vonnegut’s novel, essays, and his own family members’ personal accounts, it is evident that both Vonnegut and his protagonist suffered from PTSD.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, develops after a trauma filled event, and is a recurring reaction, such as distressing memories of the event. Anyone that has experienced two or more traumatic events in a brief setting causes the brain to absolve glucocorticoid, a hormone that controls response to stress. Signs and symptoms of PTSD of veteran is great distress by constant reminders, nightmares or vivid flashbacks that makes it feel real, and emotionally distant from others. The symptoms emanate from an insufficient way of handling extreme stress, such as relieving a stressful situation. With all the traumatizing events veterans faced, it is “estimated that about 30 out of every 100 (or 30%) of Vietnam Veterans have had PTSD in their lifetime” (Gradus). Like many others Billy Pilgrim goes in and out of his WWII experiences, remembering what happened, but for him time becomes shattered into pieces. After the war Billy truly has no control over time, he was sporadic in his thoughts,which is common for people dealing with a traumatic event, over and over again. Imagination and creativity are big keys that Billy uses to “travel” back and forth in time and to deal with surviving the air raid on Dresden. As a “time traveler” Billy keeps going back to Dresden and revisiting the times he had to hide from the violence. He travels in time and creates a whole new dimension of his own as a coping mechanism
Vees-Gulani, Susanne. "Diagnosing Billy Pilgrim: A Psychiatric Approach to Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five." CRITIQUE: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 44.2 (2003): 175+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 17 Feb. 2014. Vees-Gulani uses medical journals and works by other doctors to diagnose Billy Pilgrim with PTSD. While she isn’t a doctor, she provides an adequate amount of evidence that supports her idea. This essay ties in directly to my topic and I plan to use it as another way to link Slaughterhouse-five to PTSD.
dispute my thesis since I have found reliable information from reliable sources. In final I
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” (Nelson Mandela). The concept of race is widely debated among social classes and among the individual levels of insight. In the past doctors and many other men of science attempted to divide us by “race” in the sense that our exterior features as human beings separated us from the only race, the human race. The documentary “Race the power of an illusion” took us through the history of racial division which gave the minorities the short end of the stick. The ideology that is supported by substantial evidence that race is no more than a facade, and travels no deeper than a few exterior differences. This somewhat recent discovery has not made an impact on society. Around the world, society refuses to accept the idea that there is no such thing as one race and it affects everybody that has been raised to think we are all genetically different based on demographics and exterior features. The effects of these unscholarly and ignorant beliefs are thoroughly examined in the documentary, Langston Hughes poetry, and Alan McPherson short stories.
Issues of slavery in the and white supremacy in the United States brought about the desire for “racial purity.” The belief was that the highest ethnic achievement was the claiming of Anglo-Saxon origin. Feelings of nativism and nationalism gave way to the rise and fall of scientific whiteness and contributed heavily to the motivation as to why people studied their family trees.
After serving in World War Two, Kurt Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse-Five about his experiences through Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist in the novel. Slaughterhouse-Five is a dark novel about war and death. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental disease that inflicts people who endured a traumatic event. Some of the common symptoms include flashbacks and creating alternate worlds which Billy Pilgrim experienced various times throughout Slaughterhouse-Five. Billy Pilgrim believes he has become “unstuck in time” (Vonnegut 29) and travels to different moments throughout his life. Pilgrim is never in one event for long and his flashbacks are triggered by almost everything he does. While his “time-traveling” is sporadic and never to a relevant time, all of Billy Pilgrims flashbacks are connected through actions done in each of the visions. Perhaps the most important flashback occurred at ...
Scientific racism, a concept created to enact racial classification during the new world, is purely based on instilling a certain ideology that places the Aryan people above everyone else, hence allowing a dictation of who is right and wrong within society. These pseudoscientists would even remark that society should not fear the inferior race’s death because their lives are not equal in value. Scientific ideas about race may have died off during the collapse of the Nazis in Germany, however, the basic ideology of whites having a natural superior over dark skinned people have never gone away and are still present in the minds of many individuals today. Furthermore, the history of science used to promote a racist doctrines have made racism a stronger ideology, though it is non-existent in the realm of modern science, the mark it has left in society is undeniably painful and perilous. Even though, racism back up by science has had long lasting effects that continue to influence the minds of many, some people may think that the substantial gains in the last 100 years by minorities are clearly indications of racism being
The concept of race is an ancient construction through which a single society models all of mankind around the ideal man. This idealism evolved from prejudice and ignorance of another culture and the inability to view another human as equal. The establishment of race and racism can be seen from as early as the Middle Ages through the present. The social construction of racism and the feeling of superiority to people of other ethnicities, have been distinguishably present in European societies as well as America throughout the last several centuries.
...The most profound conclusion on the concept of race is the argument that the term is not a biologically innate fixture. Despite the discredited nature of the concept of ‘race’, the idea stills “exerts a powerful influence in everyday language and ideology”. (Jary & Jary, 2000: pp503-4) This disputes the assumption that racial divisions reflect fundamental genetic differences.
Although we often use race to classify, interact, and identify with various communities, there is a general consensus among scientists that racial differences do not exist. Indeed, biologists such as Joseph Graves state, "the measured amount of genetic variation in the human population is extremely small." Although we often ascribe genetics to the notion of race, there are no significant genetic differences between racial groups. Thus, there is no genetic basis for race. Our insistence and belief in the idea of race as biology, though, underlines the socially constructed nature of race. Racial groupings of people are based on perceived physical similarities (skin color, hair structure, physique, etc.), not genetic similarities. Nevertheless, we are inclined to equate physical similarities with genetics. Sociologists also use a temporality to argue that race is a social construct. The notion of race results from patterns from the signification of certain traits to different groups of people. However, these patterns (and societal notions of race) change over time. For example, the 20th century belief that "In vital capacity… the tendency of the Negro race has been downward" is certainly not commonplace among individuals today. Notions of race also differ across societies. Racial attitudes towards blacks, for example, are inherently different between the United States and Nigeria. These arguments all suggest that race is socially constructed. The lack of a universal notion of race means that it is not a natural, inherent, or scientific human trait. Rather, different societies use race to ordain their respective social
Race: The Power of an Illusion was an interesting 3 part film. After watching this, it made me questioned if race was really an illusion or not. It is absolutely taboo to think that the one thing that separates people the most may be a myth in itself. “We can 't find any genetic markers that are in everybody of a particular race and in nobody of some other race. We can 't find any genetic markers that define race.” (Adelman and Herbes Sommers 2003). Racism is something created in the U.S made to create supremacy for the creator. Racism is not just the way someone thinks, it is something that has is manifested in our society to separate us and can be traced to our everyday activities.
Scientific racism is the use of ostensibly scientific or pseudoscientific techniques and hypotheses to support or justify the belief in racism, racial inferiority, racialism, or racial superiority; alternatively, it is the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races. This practice is now is called pseudo scientific, yet throughout the years it got a lot of belief in the scientific community. As a theory, scientific racism use the study of human societies and cultures and their development (notably physical anthropology), anthropometry, craniometry, and other teaching in proposing anthropological typologies supporting the classification of human populations into physically separate human races, that might
In conclusion, parents who hover over their children and do not give them space to breathe and lead more independent lives harm their kids while thinking that they are helping them. These parents might, in the real sense, be creating new long lasting problems for their kids, which could potentially be transferred to their grandchildren. Children need to learn to interact and engage in college and beyond while parents should stop hovering and give their children some space to experience life. In fact, it is said that love and independence are what every child needs to succeed in life, too much or too little of either and no child prospers. Therefore, parents should stop hovering in their children affairs and allow them to learn through experience.
“The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money.” (unknown). All families are not perfect, they all have problems that they struggle with daily, they all go through tough times that cause unhappiness, but the thought that these factors have no affect on rich people is completely untrue. In Judith Guest’s Ordinary People and Jo Goodwin Parker’s “What is Poverty” both address how two families relationships, happiness and daily struggles are affected by the amount of money they have, which shows that the more money a person has does not necessarily make that person happier.