Mixed Racial Assumptions

Whether you believe it or not, racial discrimination is not a controversial matter of the past and has a profound impact on society. Nowadays we still inherit unconsciously misconceptions and prejudices that happen to be unnoticed in our day by day. Consequently, in order to raise awareness upon the connotation of this matter, we must educate people on behalf of assertiveness and comprehension. Therefore, it is remarkably important to acknowledge: the negative impact of racial discrimination on the individual and society, the necessity of derogating misconceptions and the values of cultural diversity.

Sociologists say race is a social construct, which is the way society can view a group, and their perception of the group. Race is a big example of this, as people could have the same genetic make-up, but be different races. Two people can have the same eye color, and even common DNA through blood. If two brothers had kids, one with someone of Asian descent, and the other brother having a child with someone of Native American descent, the kids who are cousins, are made up of different races. Race is more socially agreed upon, than being of a biological nature. A prime example of this, is most people will same someone is Asian, but they can be descendent of ant country in Asia, while being categorized as Asian. When we look at people from Europe,

The PBS series “Race: The Power of an Illusion” effectively works to expose race as a social construct and deconstructs the false notions that race is a biological marker. The series first discusses that all human beings originated from Africa but dispersed about 70,000 years ago to various places in the world. As a result of this migration, people were spread to different locations throughout the world with different environmental conditions that affected their physical traits. It was many years after the migration in which people began to display these new physical traits such as slanted eyes, fair skin, and differing hair textures. While the series notes the physical changes that occurred during the migration it also emphasizes that race while it may seem apparent in skin color and other physical features has no real biological basis.

The meaning, significance, and definition of race have been debated for centuries. Historical race concepts have varied across time and cultures, creating scientific, social, and political controversy. Of course, today’s definition varies from the scientific racism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that justified slavery and later, Jim Crow laws in the early twentieth. It is also different from the genetic inferiority argument that was present at the wake of the civil rights movement. However, despite the constantly shifting concepts, there seems to be one constant that has provided a foundation for ideas towards race: race is a matter of visually observable attributes such as skin color, facial features, and other self-evident

In Sharon Begley’s article, “Three is not enough,” the author focuses her argument on the fact that race should not be defined by his or her body components, such as DNA, hair, eye, or skin color. In other words, race should be justified by their social interactions with others and build upon one’s behaviors and actions.That is to say, one’s skin color, physical appearance do not define who he or she is, nor does it impose a stereo type of that a certain group of people. The word race is often misunderstood, many believe that race is used to label one group of people, and make assumptions about a certain group of people. However, this is wrong according to Sharon Begley, author of “ Three Is Not Enough”. Begley cites a study done by biologist

This paper sets out to delineate how historians have debated the uses and misuses of racial concepts over the last five decades. Historians have approached the concept of race within the context of the history of the United States in various

Additionally, “race” does not correlate with genetic variation. But I have presented three further flaws in the classification of the concept of race listed below. The first reason to why the concept of race is flawed is because race refers to the individual characteristics that each of us posses and are classified into belonging to certain racial groups based on these characteristics. But in fact, all humans, regardless of visual characteristics such as hair color, eye shape, skin tone ect. are virtually

In 1955 the Civil Rights movement started and then came to an end in 1968. The goal of the movement was to end Racial Segregation and discrimination. While the event was able to put an end to segregation, it barely made a difference on ending discrimination. Even today, each race has been stereotyped to have certain actions or be specialized in a certain category. African Americans are seen as the “thugs” in society, Hispanics are mostly thought of as illegals, and middle easterners that wear hijabs are seen as terrorists. The racial stereotyping needs to be toned down and the unacceptable labeling in society has to come to an end.

It is believed by many that race is a natural category, reflecting biological differences within people (Wright & Rogers, 2011). Race is generally concentrated on the visible, physical differences between people. Unfortunately, this belief allows for a lot of misconstruing about the exact nature of racial classifications.

Stereotype is a perceived belief that people of a particular group have similar characteristics. Often these characteristics are negative. The racial stereotype is the most profound especially in the U.S. generalizations and stereotypes about the blacks in the U.S. took permanent shape, especially after colonial times. History passed on to generations about early Americans has played a major role in influencing people’s attitude and perception about African Americans during those periods. Slavery was dominant among the blacks and in most American history, very few Africans like Martin Luther are recognized for great achievements.

There are numerous assumptions and stereotypes people fabricate about WIC participants. Some of these assumptions and stereotypes are that people on the WIC program abuse the system by being dependent on the system and not using government assistance programs as they were originally intended when it was created in 1972. Additionally, other assumptions are that the majority of minorities or people of color are using these government agencies. I believe the writer of this case study used this assumption when writing it because she made a point to give the readers the illusion that Mrs. Ortiz is of Hispanic origin. Another assumption that I perceived from this case study is the use of the name Rebecca obviously the author is trying to refer

The theory of race is a difficult concept to grasp as there are many ideas, opinions and views on the topic. The real question being, is race a biological idea or a social concept? According to the National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics (2016), and from a biological perspective race is defined as “a group that possess characteristic traits and gene frequencies that distinguish it from other groups in the same species”. At the same time the American Anthropological Association (1998), defines the social concept of race and ethnicity as “the identification with population groups characterized by a common ancestry, language and custom”. Just by virtue of their definitions it’s clear that regardless of the perspective there is overlapping causing the two concepts to be intertwined with each other.

This means that we are trained to pick out certain physical characteristics and then associate them with a particular group. Overtime we have learned to look for certain pieces of information about a person’s appearance, meanwhile completely disregarding others to come up with an idea of which race they belong to. The book states that despite the variance in their surface characteristics, today in the United States Norwegians and Italians are considered to be white, Nigerians and Ethiopians are considered to be black, and Indians and Koreans are considered to be Asian. Biology does not say that Indians and Koreans are a member of the same race; it is socially created and is a widespread rule in America for grouping

Race and racism are a worldwide concern since they have effects on both intellectual and scientific grounds. Biologically, humans can be classified into distinct races using consistent and reliable biological criteria. This can be done by use of genetic traits that is also depicted in the physical characteristic of an individual, like skin color, hair texture, eye and nose shape, and body type. These traits also vary in different geographical areas and hence all traits have distinct geographical distributions with humans in classified races. Therefore, the biological study supports that races are valid scientifically.

Racial prejudices exist everywhere, it is defined as, “a negative attitude towards a group of people based on race — not on direct knowledge or experience” (Dictionary, 2014). There are many factors that influence racial prejudices in people including, fear, hatred, intolerance, and discrimination. As a whole, we need to come together and get over these barriers in order to break this mold.