Others. That one word distinctively separates people base on a certain trait or characteristic. Society affects us more than we realize. We are oblivious to fact that we have been categorized in a society particularly due to our race, gender, social class. It affects how we react to certain beliefs or people. Barbara Ehrenreich, Allan G. Johnson, and Austin Fuentes all wrote an essay that examines how closely one factor can lead to labeling a person. Each author has creditability in understanding social issues as they have researched social issues and earned a degree for their knowledge. Each essay from these authors focuses on a different topic relating to how as a society label each concept. The writer’s audience is any individual that …show more content…
The origin of classification based on social class dates back to long history. Her main claim is “We’ll have to conclude that poverty is not, after all, a cultural aberration or a character flaw. Poverty is a shortage of money” (Ehrenreich, 609). Ehrenreich defends a part of the poor by stating that “some are hardworking and fiercely ambitious while there are some people that lead disorderly lives by drinking, and brawling” (607). Most of the audience are minorities rather than the upper class. She is speaking up for those with a reputation of being poor for not being able to make money.
Austin Fuentes is a professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame and wrote “From The Myth of Race”. Fuentes’s main claim is “There is no way to divide humanity into biological units that correspond to the categories black, white, or Asian, or any other categories” (Fuentes, 519). After all of his statistical research, he states that the perception of categories is only an assumption and “there is no support for biological races” (Fuentes, 523). It does not mean that humans do not vary. The racial division of white, black, and Asian are not defined by our blood or genetics; it is culturally developed. Fuentes states that in the United States people call a person based on their cultural interpretation of skin, hair, and face (523). Most people just assume one’s race by looking at their features. Fuentes develops credibility to support his claims through his use of
“Think about race in its universality. Where is your measurement device? There is no way to measure race. We sometimes do it by skin color, other people may do it by hair texture - other people may have the dividing lines different in terms of skin color. What is black in the United States is not what 's black in Brazil or what 's black in South Africa.”-Dr.Goodman, Race: The Power of an Illusion
When people think of the word identity they might think of several factors of identity such as their name, race, sexuality, religion or other things that define the person that they are. The concepts of human identity have been created to not only label ourselves, but to also label the people around us so that we can have an improved sense of structure and order within our lives and society. Labeling people affects how those people are spoken to or interacted with in society. These labels confine individuals to act or think a certain way, which limits creativity. Labeling also affects whether a person is treated positively or negatively by other people. When people label one another, they put them in categories based on several things about
The idea of race in society is truly that; an idea. However, one of the first things one notices about another human is their perceived race. Often, incorrect assumptions are made about a person, based on his race. In addition, many believe race can be determined by biological factors. However, there is no biological basis to race. Without a doubt, genes play a role in our skin, hair, and eye color; however, there are not certain genes present in an entire race and not another. Race is not clear cut; if one were to travel from either pole to the equator, a specific location could not be identified to separate any two races.
This article written by Mark Nathan Cohen, who is an anthropology professor in the State University of New York; talks about how race does not define human diversity. In the article, he also mentions that in school students learn the definition of race based on “biological variation” and not based on their culture. The professor Cohen says that studies on human family tree that were based on their genetic analysis of traits do not show any relation of who those traits belong to. He gives an example by stating that even skin color is not a god indicator of who it relates to because the “traits occur independently in several different branches of the human family.”
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.
Ethnicity and race are ways to differentiate a group of person from another; therefore, in the 21th century this terms has acquired a powerful meaning in society. A few months ago, I learned how significant this terms are.
The idea of race is real, but it is not biologically reality. Race is based on cultural perspectives that we as human beings use to identify persons around the world. “Science would favor Du Bois. Today, the mainstream belief among scientists is that race is a social construct without biological meaning” (Gannon) Meaning that there is nothing biologically real about race. And that it is strictly culturally developed.
Biological advancements such as Darwinism and Mendelian genetics had a profound impact on the study of race in the scientific community. These new concepts eventually led some scientists to question the validity of traditional notions about race. The resulting debates continue even today. The idea of race, especially in citizens of this country, evokes strong feelings because of the enormous social implications associated with racial identity. The social connotations of racial categories have had a profound influence on the way scientists understand human variation. Early ideas of race were colored by these connotations, and they still play a critical role in the way we understand race today. This paper will
People are given labels based on their own actions and decisions they make. However, people may also receive labels based on people they associate themselves with and those they associated themselves with
The English term ‘race’ is believed to originate from the Spanish word raza, which means ‘breed’ or ‘stock’ (Race). People use race to define other groups, this separation of groups is based largely on physical features. Features like skin color and hair don’t affect the fundamental biology of human variation (Hotz). Race is truly only skin deep, there are no true biological separations between two ‘racial’ groups. Scientifically speaking, there is more variation between single local groups than there is between two large, global groups; the human variation is constantly altering (Lewontin). The majority of today’s anthropologists agree that race is a form of social categorization, not the separation of groups based on biological
Labels in society range from gender, sexuality, religion, and counting. In her article “Society’s Labels,’’ Audrey Arbogast states that “We categorize people as soon as we see them. Our world is obsessed with labels because we find it difficult to comprehend things that don’t fit into the pre-made boxes that society has provided us with.”
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.
In the modern society, most scientists deny the notion of race as a valid biological way of categorizing humans. Human beings are not defined by the so-called “race” because race, generally speaking, does not exist. Human beings look different based on our superficial appearances, however, it only distinguishes us from our hair color, skin color, cultural background and so on, not from the so-called race. Knowing someone's skin color does not absolutely tell us anything else about him or her except for what our eyes can directly see. In our textbook, the biological definition of the word “race” explains that race applies to humans with both cultural and biological factors. There is no physical trait or condition that distinguishes all the members
In the United States it is not uncommon to hear the question, “What are you?” This seemingly simple question stems from the American belief that individuals can be divided into different biologically defined racial groups. However, anthropologists have long argued that U.S. racial groups are a product of American cultural constructions, meaning that racial groups are not genetically determined but only represent the way cultures (in this case Americans) classify people. For example, in the U.S individuals are classified into different races based on their heritage. However in Brazil, people are classified into a series of “tipos" based on their physical appearance. In the article “Mixed Blood”, Jeffrey Fish supports the claim that race is nothing more, but a social construct by demonstrating the cultural basis of race by comparing how races are defined in the United States and Brazil.
Due to scientist’s interest in human genetic variation, human racial classification became a focus of scientific investigation by evolutionary biologists attempting to categorize individual humans based on presumed patterns of biological difference. Scientists had hoped to classify humans in the same way that they classified other species. These scientists attached hierarchical titles to these categorizations; they claimed that differences in skin color, physiognomy, and geography were associated with scientifically measurable differences in character, aptitude, and temperament (Smedley, 1998). However, studies supporting these claims have been unsound (Gould, 1981). Categorization of humans by racial and ethnic groups continues, as researchers must remain aware of this historical legacy of the science of heredity as the genomic era continues to develop (Bonham et al., 2005).