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There are many races and ethnicities in the United States. While we are all in the same country we have many differences. These differences are sometimes noticeable just by looking at a person. Other times you can only find out about them only by diving deeper into the person’s background and see their cultural differences. I’m going to give you an example of race and ethnicity by presenting a profile of myself.
I’m a twenty-three year old African American male from Chicago. My great great grandparents were slaves in Mississippi. Sometime during the slavery days a slave owner had sex with one of my grandmothers, which I have lighter skin than most African Americans. Since I have slave ancestry, I have no idea which part of Africa my forefathers came from. Another reason I know that I am African American is because my phenotype matches that of people from African descent.
I was raised on the south side of Chicago, so my subculture derives from what I was around growing up. I was around the whole “ghetto” culture; baggy pants, rap music, gangs, etc. Even though I was around those things growing up I didn’t fully absorb the surrounding culture. Growing up I did adopt the local fashion and slang, but I eventually grew out of that. I never adopted the local mind set, which was gangster life. That consisted of, dealing drugs, not excelling in school, treating women badly, ready to fight at a drop of a hat, and the mindset that the (white)man is out to get them. I never found those qualities attractive so I never adopted them. Since I never acted like the people around me, I was mostly shunned as an outcast. It wasn’t considered “cool” to not conform to that way of life. This is what I think is the ultimate downfall of my culture.
This essay will summarize and reflect upon 5 individuals who were born into, and grew up in the United States of America under slavery. Lucinda Davis, Charity Anderson, Walter Calloway, Fountain Hughes and Richard Toley each have a compelling story to tell about the time when black Americans were not looked at as citizens and were not free to make decisions that were afforded to white Americans. Although their stories are brief and do not reflect all of the daily hardships that were faced by slaves during that time in our Nation’s history, they are, nonetheless, powerful in their message. Fearing above all else a beating that would result from a perceived act of disrespect, the fact that each of these individuals survived is an example of the human spirits desire to survive in the direst of situations and the ability to overcome insurmountable odds.
Race and ethnicity is a main factor in the way we identify others and ourselves. The real question here is does race/ethnicity still matter in the U.S.? For some groups race is not a factor that affects them greatly and for others it is a constant occurrence in their mind. But how do people of mix race reacts to this concept, do they feel greatly affected by their race? This is the question we will answer throughout the paper. I will first examine the battle of interracial relationship throughout history and explain how the history greatly explains the importance of being multiracial today. This includes the backlash and cruelty towards interracial couple and their multiracial children. Being part of a multiracial group still contains its impact in today’s society; therefore race still remaining to matter to this group in the U.S. People who place themselves in this category are constantly conflicted with more than one cultural backgrounds and often have difficulty to be accepted.
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.
Slavery was a huge part of America’s history and is impossible to ignore today. African-Americans, during the 1860’s, obviously disagreed with the widespread use of slavery and did whatever they could to showcase their disapproval of it. There are many examples of slaves hostility toward their masters, but unfortunately the South was too heavily populated with slave owners for most of the protests to have a huge impact on the push for the abolition of slavery.
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
People who have distinctive physical and cultural characteristics are a racial ethnic group. This refers to people who identify with a common national origin or cultural heritage. But remember that race refers to the physical characteristics with which we are born. Whereas ethnicity describes cultural characteristics that we learn.
The race or ethnicity is essentially an ascribed status but nationality in the United States is also ascribed because of jus soli in the 14th Amendment that guarantees citizenship for those born on US soil (Peralta, 2015). Essentially, your ethnicity, nation and nationality all become one but are separate on your unique classification within the census. The United States has Native American tribes that are their own nation and has the state of Hawaii that was its own nation which would cover an ethnic and nationality classification. Each state in the United States has their own culture which could be classified as distinct ethnic groups such as Louisiana with creoles, Florida with residents that have linage that connects to the Kingdom of Spain before statehood and Pennsylvania with their Amish population. The layers are what make the United States complex and unique. Words can have two meanings and mean almost the same
Though the United States is home to many immigrants, controversy surrounds the issue of immigrants in the United States. The United States in a melting pot of various backgrounds and cultures, yet it is hard for all to merge into acceptance of one another. The first chapter of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and class covers stratification, prejudice and discrimination, and inequality.
The biological understanding of race in the United States is that people from different places have different genetics and genes in their body, accounting for different traits in each people. These people could be grouped together by their biological traits because their similarities in genes would make them look alike. People wanted to believe that there actually were true biological differences between people. Race in the past and present (somewhat) has been categorized based on continental origin, skin color, nose structures, and hair type. To define a person’s race, someone could ask questions like: “what type of hair do they have, curly or straight? Is their skin dark or light? Are their eyes blue, brown, or black?” Based off of these
For most American’s especially African Americans, the abolition of slavery in 1865 was a significant point in history, but for African Americans, although slavery was abolished it gave root for a new form of slavery that showed to be equally as terrorizing for blacks. In the novel Slavery by Another Name, by Douglas Blackmon he examines the reconstruction era, which provided a form of coerced labor in a convict leasing system, where many African Americans were convicted on triumphed up charges for decades.
As I reflect on who I am and which culture I identify with, I am met with reservation. My parents are both Black Americans, they were both born and raised in the United States, their parent were also born and raised in the US. It is obvious that we derive from African descent; our skin color and physical features yet I find it difficult to relate or identify with my African heritage as slavery has played a pivotal role in separating us from our African origin. African enslavement left us devoid of a way to define ourselves. It severed familial ties and deprived us of any viable opportunity to reclaim them.(www.huffpost.com) We are descendants of African slaves but when I speak to someone who was born in Africa or research African culture, I
Omi and Winant (1986) stated that Racial categories often consolidate its meaning by the particular social relations and history context(p.19). Bonilla-Silva(2003) purported that the early colonizer from the Europe named the people in the land which they invaded as “negro” and “Indian” to distinguish them from the noble European (p.34) In the early stages of United State, the race introduced as the tool for the slaveholder and other white class to legitimized the practice of slavery and disenfranchised the natural rights of African Americans. Even the other white immigrants were considered as an individual race when they first migrate to the United State. Thus the meaning of race are constantly shifting within the change of social relation and political background. For example, in the article written by M.Lee, the 1900 census has only five race categories comparing to the 1990 census which has more than ten race option, which means the conception of race are continuously shifting(p.4). Beside the social relations, we also discern race through the preemptive notion of what each racial groups looks like. The African American are generally portrayed as the people who have thick lips and black skin. An Asian American usually have small eyes and feeble physique. Those stereotypes about the people 's physical appearance forge the content of race and become the common way which we utilize to confirm one 's race
Race and ethnicity are two terms that are constantly used in today’s society. Understanding these terms can help people to recognize that color of skin or color of hair does not define a person. These terms connect with history, social interaction, and the overall make up of a person. However America is constantly obsessed with labeling people by the way that they look or the way that they act. America seems to encourage the terms race and ethnicity and continue to divide people into categories. It is interesting to comprehend these terms because they are not going to disappear any time soon. Race and ethnicity are apart of America’s history and will be a part of the future.
?A definition of race might rely on an outward manifestation such as color or some other physiological sign. Race and ethnicity (and to some degree nationality) also imply a shared socio-cultural heritage and belief system. Finally, race and ethnicity harbor a physiological self-identification. Indeed, this factor is perhaps the most important in defining the identity of an ?ethnic? or ?racial? individual. It implies a conscious desire on the part of a person to belong to an aggregate of people, which possesses unique cultural characteristics, rituals and manners and a unique value system.
Heterogeneous cultural groups have evolved into distinct racial groups that individuals misrecognize as natural instead of a social construction. Historically, people did not primarily identify according to race, but rather ethnic group, language, and kinship. Ethnicity is the identification with an ethnic group based on language, religion, historical experience, geographic isolation, kinship or race. Race is phenotypically dissimilar groups in some sort of long-term unequal power and/or economic relationship where the dominant group justifies its position through some kind of legitimating ideology. Although, race has no biological reality, it is culturally real and operates as a principal identity at local and national levels. The United