African-American Groups

To many people across a variety of different nationalities and cultures, race has been proven to be a key factor for how society views you in the eyes of those who are prominently in charge. The term race has been brought up in recent years, to be considered a form of identification, as the word race is used to describe physical characteristics such as a person’s color of skin, hair, and eyes. When in reality, the correct term they should be using is Ethnicity. As a result, the term race is used to separate people into sub-categories based on the color of their skin. This type of classification, is a man-made creation used by society to classify certain groups of people into lower classes, while keeping the predominate group in charge at the top.

The purpose of categorizing people into different racial groups can be how we see each other and the exterior traits. Exterior traits include their skin tone, type of hair and eye color. In “Rethinking the Color Line – Understanding How Boundaries Shift,” Gallagher mentions we tend to sort out the categories by skin color and then by cultural background. These racial differences have been predetermined by having the mindset of having a superior and inferior group. The superior group are to be the whites and inferior group are the minorities. These ideas have changed because of the major influences such as time, social and politics.

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.

THESIS: Scientists and other intellectuals recognize the modern concept of "race" as an artificial category that developed over the past five centuries due to encounters with non-European people. Even though people still attempt to organize humans into categories according to their race, these categories have been shown to have no scientific basis.

The mission of the students around the country who fought for an education that would shed light on African Americans. The progress the students created is seen today in American Universities ,and also HBCUs, where (AAS)African American Studies is implemented into the curriculum. Before, the dissection the formation of AAS, it should be noted that without the sacrifice from others I undoubtedly would not be writing about AAS ,or reflecting on the significance it has created for generations so far.

After the establishment of the “acceptable” and “right” type of American, the neglect of Blacks, Native Americans, and European immigrants emerged. Although white European immigrants, were not identified and considered as “White American,” they were the closest group to them. Native Americans came after, and at the bottom were considered Blacks. After

"Events in the nineteenth century made it abundantly and irrefutably clear that race as a concept sui generis superseded social class as the dominant mechanism of social division and stratification in North America." (Smedley 219) For many decades people have been using race as a way to classify humans into different social categories. Lower, Middle, and Upper classes were created to divide humans into appropriate categories using their individual lifestyles, financial income, residence, and occupation. People decided to ignore this classifying system and classify one another,

The classification of Native Americans by the United States government has long produced tension. Native Americans within the United States are classified using standards that differ from those used to classify other racial or ethnic minorities, specifically African Americans. While, historically, the classification of African-Americans as relied upon the “one-drop” rule, the classification of Native Americans over the past hundred years has relied upon varying, complicated, and ultimately arbitrary blood rules. However, the reliance upon blood laws does not illustrate the effects of self-identification or identification by others. Across the United States, there are various persons who would self-identify as Native American but are not

One of the main issues that America has continued to ignore is the problems within the African -American community. Many children within the African- American community fail to get the necessary leadership from their respective parents. That lack of leadership generally occurs from the absence pf a father figure in the household. Reason may be because of a father being imprisoned for whatever reason, or the father being killed by law enforcement illegally. Thus, the more impressionable minds within the community commit illegal activities to get recognition from their peers. Indeed, these people should be punished for their acts by law enforcement. What the African- American community needs are not police enforcement in the citizens’’ daily

One’s community plays a huge role in their health behaviors. The African-American community must provide better opportunities and options for the homosexual men within their communities. Wishfully thinking, there should be a leader from every community that will be in charge of improving HIV/AIDS within their own neighborhoods/communities. Having someone with a personal connection to the community is a great asset because they know exactly what is going on and what will work and what will not.

During the 1900s African Americans fought for freedom and racial uplift. Today African Americans can be seen fighting for equality and justice. African Americans actions were demonstrated through the Niagara Movement, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People also known as the NAACP, the Harlem Renaissance, and the civil rights movement. Each of the movements listed have shown the different struggles Blacks went through for what they believe in.

Starting with Omi/Winant and their writings on Racial Formation we interpret where the origins of the characterization of race began. For the United State it begins with early European Settlers. When European explorers in the New World “discovered” people who looked different than themselves, these “natives”

In the decade since my first encounter with "racial" labeling, it has continued to amaze me that anyone is able to classify themselves or others in the arbitrary terms that modern society has set. I am quite unable and unwilling to do so for perfectly legitimate reasons. Genealogy is a favorite hobby of mine. Many branches of my family are traced back ten or more generations to just three European countries. This means little to me, however, because it is the branches that are missing, the nameless, faceless, raceless ancestors, that keep me filling in "other" time after time. My second and more damning reason revolves around the sheer biological absurdity of defining race in the terms of society and dictionaries. Related individuals who share physical characteristics such as skin color do not constitute a race. True races, meaning populations with unique combinations of inherited traits, are extremely rare in our world of eclectic migrants. Many people who appear to share traits actually evolved separately and adapted to similar environmental conditions.

One of the most controversial concepts is race. In this paper the term race will be used to “...refer to a category of people who are defined as similar because of a number of physical appearance” (Tischler, 2014, P.229). Genetics are one way to define a race by bringing attention to differences in gene frequencies among certain groups. The specific trait being looked at determines how many races can be defined by this method. Variations in physical appearance have shown nothing to do with the process of the biological classification of humans, however mental and physiological similarities have shown to be much more helpful in this process. There are also legal definitions of race, which are centered around determining who is not white. Segregation laws did this when certain members of a group were to be given different treatments and separated. These legal definitions of race gave specific guidelines to follow when trying to determine if someone is not white. The social definition of race does not use physical features or a person's heritage to determine their race, but rather their actions. If a person acts, dresses, speaks as if they are part of a certain race, who is to say they are not part of that race?

This social concept of race, not biological, relates to Brodkin’s (1998) introduction that even the grouping of ethnic origins that is considered today as White people