Social Construction of Racial Classification
When you type the word race into dictionary.com the first result defines race as, “a contest of speed, as in running, riding, driving, or sailing.” It is not until you scroll down that you find the definition for race used in a way to define origin of race. If the word race has such a large stigma surrounding it, then why do you have to scroll down to find the anthropologic definition for the word? Until the government decided to come up with a classification system to help separate people of different skin tones from each other there was no such term as race, racism, or racist. Racial distinguish as a classification system is a product of the government creating laws and their instruments used to
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This is demonstrated by the adding, dropping, and changing of racial classifications in each ten-year census. In Kenneth Prewitt’s article, “Racial Classification in America: Where Do We Go From Here?” he discusses the ongoing battle about racial categorization. Try imaging a time before the words race, racism, and racist had no meaning to them. “Classifications should not be interpreted as being scientifical or anthropological in nature. They have been developed in response to needs expressed both by the executive branch and congress.” (Prewitt, Kenneth) Since 1970 there have been policies enacted based on a wide range of characteristics to help the government separate people of different age, ethnicity, and backgrounds. The government created racial classifications to help distinguish who had control and who did not. The initial racial categorization system created in 1790 was as listed: free, slave, taxed and un-taxed persons. Since the first census multiple categories have been added, while multiple categories have been …show more content…
Hughey the authors deliberate about the social occurrence called “passing.” Passing refers to when a person of one race identifies as another race, usually to gain the benefits that accompany the certain racial categorization. Passing in generally a mechanism used in relation to race, although it can also be in relation to a person’s social class, gender, sexual orientation, caste, and so on. A past popular example of passing is a man named Homer Plessy. Plessy was a man who had European features such as light skin, soft hair, and a smaller frame. Although Plessy was considered under the one-drop as he had one-eighth of African American blood. Plessy used his white privilege to his advantage, until one day he was stopped on a bus for sitting in a white only section. When asked his race he replied that he was one-eighth black. Homer was then arrested, the court ruled in favor of the state and not Plessy. Passing was a way for biracial people to be able to escape segregation and live a better life. A person would “pass” as white to gain a better life. This meant completely leaving behind their old life including their job, friends, and family. In order to gain the better privileges and “pass” you had to erase any evidence of your black
Historically, people were granted certain rights and privileges based merely on their skin color. Persons of darker skin are often less opportune; persons of lighter skin are almost automatically glorified. However, with the mass interracial breeding, many African American descendants started to look “white” even though they were of “black” descent. Many “mulattos” used this to their advantage to acquire higher social status and respect. The act of identifying as a different race and hiding one’s true race is known as “passing.” In the short novel, “Passing” by Nella Larsen, it follows two childhood friends of mixed-race, Irene Westover/Redfield and Clare Kendry, who later reconnected later in their different adult lives; both appear to have light complexion but one embraces her ancestry while the other tries to “pass” as something else. The latter’s decision usually ends unpleasantly. So while it may seem beneficial to “pass,” the end result is that the truth will come out. Literary articles which critique “Passing” such as “Sororophobia” by Helena Michie and “Black Female Sexuality in Passing” by Deborah E. McDowell discusses the issues of passing. Juanita Ellsworth’s “White Negros” provide scenarios where skin color played a factor in education and professional experiences. Louis Fremont Baldwin’s “Negro to Caucasion, Or How the Ethiopian Is Changing His Skin” explains the different ways people pass and how it can be undetected. Blatantly “passing” as a different race can lead to catastrophe and should be avoided.
In 1912, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man was anonymously published by James Weldon Johnson. It is the narrative of a light-skinned man wedged between two racial categories; the offspring of a white father and a black mother, The Ex-Colored man is visibly white but legally classified as black. Wedged between these two racial categories, the man chooses to “pass” to the white society. In Passing: When People Can’t Be Who They Are, Brooke Kroeger describes “passing” as an act when “people effectively present themselves as other than who they understand themselves to be” (Kroeger 7). The Ex-Colored Man’s choice to ultimately “pass” at the end of the novel has been the cause of controversy amongst readers. Many claim his choice to “pass” results from racial self-hatred or rejecting his race. Although this may be true, the main reason for his choice to “pass” is more intense. The narrator’s “passing” is an effort to place himself in a safe living environment, open himself up to greater opportunities and be adventurous and cynical in his success to fool the nation. It is because of his light skin that The Ex-Colored Man confidently knows the world will categorize him as white; thus cowardly disclaiming his black race without actually disclosing his decision.
1. What is the difference between a. and a. Inequality became instrumental in privileging white society early in the creation of American society. The white society disadvantaged American Indians by taking their land and established a system of rights fixed in the principle that equality in society depended on the inequality of the Indians. This means that for white society to become privileged, they must deprive the American Indians of what was theirs to begin with. Different institutions such as the social institution, political, economical, and education have all been affected by race.
The notion of “passing” began after the implementation of hypo-descent. Individuals who are categorized as “black” according to hypo-descent attempt to bypass discriminatory barriers by “passing” for white. When an individual is “passing” they try to assimilate themselves into the other race. “Passing” made it to the Supreme Court in the Takao Ozawa case. Ozawa, a Japanese male, filed for United States citizenship under the Naturalization Act of 1906.
In today’s society, it is acknowledgeable to assert that the concepts of race and ethnicity have changed enormously across different countries, cultures, eras, and customs. Even more, they have become less connected and tied with ancestral and familial ties but rather more concerned with superficial physical characteristics. Moreover, a great deal can be discussed the relationship between ethnicity and race. Both race and ethnicity are useful and counterproductive in their ways. To begin, the concept of race is, and its ideas are vital to society because it allows those contemporary nationalist movements which include, racist actions; to become more familiar to members of society. Secondly, it has helped to shape and redefine the meaning of
Our daily lives are affected by race whether we are aware of it or not. How we live different aspects of our lives depend on the colour of our skin. From the types of jobs we have, the income we earn, where we live etc. In societies fundamentally structured by race, it is important that we do not abandon the notion of race, but instead pioneer a revolution in the way that races are understood. In this paper, I will examine how the dominant groups in society define race in terms of biology, which leads to the notion of white privilege, which is their advantaged position in society, at the expense of other racial groups.
Race has no biological meaning. There is only one human race; there are no subspecies, no single defining characteristic, traits, or even gene, separates one “race” from another. Instead of being a biological concept, race is a social construct, and a relatively modern one at that. It was created to give light-skinned Europeans an advantage by making the white race superior and all others inferior. Throughout its history, the concept of race has served this purpose well.
Race, in the common understanding, draws upon differences not only of skin color and physical attributes but also of language, nationality, and religion. Race categories are often used as ethnic intensifiers, with the aim of justifying the exploitation of one group by another. Race is an idea that has become so fixed in American society that there is no room for open-mindedness when challenging the idea of racial categories. Over the years there has been a drastic change with the way the term "race" is used by scientists. Essentially, there is a major difference between the biological and sociological views of race.
From the beginning of recorded history, possibly before then, humans have found a necessity for classifying and categorizing every aspect of life. This need for order has been used to efficiently organize and clarify the endless details on Earth. This arrangement of objects in groups has also created a very sinister and volatile mindset that some people live by. This associative manner of classification has lead to the formation of beliefs in race identities, stereotypes, and superiority in the form of racism. Racism is contempt for people who have physical characteristics different from your own (Nanda and Warms 1). This concept is often combined with what is called racialism. Racialism is an ideology based on the following suppositions: There are biologically fixed races; different races have different moral, intellectual, and physical characteristics (Nanda and Warms 1). This is the ideal that many people engage in consciously and the way some people think without even realizing it. The only way to overcome this derogatory belief system is to define the meanings and misunderstandings of racial differences.
Why does racism continue to take place in the United States today? According to the sociology textbook Our Social World, minority groups are ones that differ from the dominant group, which is why they have less power, fewer privileges, and are discriminated against. The textbook also explains how there are numerous ways for dominant and minority groups to interact. Genocide is the killing of the minority group by the dominant group, while pluralism is the complete opposite whereas different ethnic or racial groups accept one another’s beliefs and values, and manage to respect each other. Multiple strategies to cope with prejudice, discrimination, and racism are used by minority groups to deal with their statuses: passing (blending in with dominant groups), acceptance, avoidance, and aggression. In America, racism against minority groups has improved, but is nowhere near ending. To determine people’s opinions on racism and why it exists, I
The two terms are often misconstrued as if they have identical meaning. The term ‘race’ is based on the thought of biological and physical differences. According to Robb, “the concept of ‘race’ included any… groups of people which held them to display inherent, heritable, persistent or predictive characteristics, and which thus had a biological or quasi-biological basis” (1995:1). In the study of race, particularly during the late part of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, groups of people were classified on the basis of different phenotypical characteristics determined by physical attributes such as skin pigmentation, cranial capacity and hair type or colour (Miles, 1993:59). Hannaford (1996) refutes the idea that race is a biological concept, “We assume that the racial and ethnic diversity we see all around us has always existed as a historical, social, and biological fact that needs no further interrogation” (p3).
To understand our existence, we interact with other members of society and develop a set of shared notions, institutions, and structures. Sociology, the systematic study of human society, helps us understand these interactions and developments. In particular, applying the sociological imagination to the social construct of race yields insight into its fallacy and utility. This essay examines the historical origin, functions, and societal implications of race in the United States. I also connect the social construct of race with the writings of Barbara J. Fields, Kingsley Davis, Wilbert E. Moore, Marianne Bertrand, and Sendhil Mullainathan. In a larger context, the social construct of race is a system of schematic classification; race
According to Omi and Winant, the term race can be defined as “a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies.” From their framework of racial formation and concept of racial projects, Omi and Winant asserts that race is a matter of social structure and cultural representation that has been intertwined to shape the nature of racism. Racism has been seen since the events of early English colonization of the indigenous people and the racialization of African Americans through slavery, all in which the United States is molded upon as a nation. Thus, this social structure of domination has caused European colonials and American revolutionists to create racialized representations, policies, and structures in order to oppress indigenous and black populations in their respective eras.
Race, class, and gender hypothesis appear to survive struggle at diverse level encounters and usually face depletion in presenting a complete and inclusive theory of continuing discrimination that can give details or identify the altering patterns of race and gender dissimilarity in the United States from the past few decades.
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.