Philosophy is all about exploring the different perspectives people have in their minds. This was my initial thought of what philosophy was. I knew that many of the topics that we discussed in this class would stimulate my mind. Learning new theories that contribute to the better understanding of my history is something that I enjoy greatly. No matter the level of difficulty of the subject matter, I enjoy learning what I consider to be reality. Discussing not only where the ideas of race and racialized categories came from, but how they created and adopted by society at the time. Part of me became pleased that this topic was even introduced since most students choose not to talk about anything that has to do with race, even if it is assigned to them. I was pleasantly surprised with the explicitness of this philosophy class as well.
I expected some level of seriousness with topics listed on the schedule. As far as being analytical, this class required me to think a great amount. This made it somewhat difficult but, since I enjoyed most of the topics and readings, it was more bearable. It also caught me off guard because the amount of reading was somewhat similar to that of my other classes I have been in. Heading into this class have already taken few other philosophy classes, I thought that we were going to learn and explore the history of the ideas of race and gender. I was dead wrong. We started from a historical perspective for a handful of topics, but in no way, shape,
I learned some important things from this course that I will allow to stick with me no matter my profession. Diversity is something I will always have to deal with regardless if it is race, gender, or gender orientation. Importantly this course has allowed me to grow as an individual and has shown me that it is okay to learn about other races and their background. Not only has it allowed me to be acceptable of everyone in fact, it has allowed me to be less judgmental amongst others.
Many institutions questioned how they were going to provide class necessities and administrators for the newly added courses. These concerns arose when they wondered what kind of controversy will be created from having the classes and what exactly students will benefit from the teachings of ethnic studies. Hu-Dehart stated in her article, “The relationship between ethnic studies programs and traditional academic departments becomes unmanageable because it raises issues of turf protection, competition for scarce resources, and racism on the part of traditional scholars.” At first, the fight for ethnic studies seemed as simple as a three step process: add the class, find teachers, and find students interested in the course. However, many other factors contributed to the establishment of ethnic studies courses. As listed above, these issues complicate the ease of creating a multicultural academic course. Another thing to consider was that not all students agreed to have an ethnic studies course. According to Hu-Dehart, “Traditional scholars find it difficult to shake off their preconceptions about the illegitimacy and inferiority of ethnic studies programs and, by extension, ethnic studies scholars.” Although the importance of an ethnic studies course does not resonate with all student body, being aware of the opinions that are roused is just as important. There may not always be an agreeing audience but it is possible to open the minds of college students by exposing them to multicultural
First and foremost, I'm deeply disturbed by what transpired at the National Policy Institute conference over the weekend. It's rather apropos that we are covering the topic of race at this moment. I'm furious but inspired (now, more than ever) to continue on this journey of justice studies as part of my personal commitment to be an ally for minorities. I wish that every person had the privilege of taking this class, the knowledge we're gaining is one of the most powerful tools we can use to combat the ignorance of white nationalism.
Before taking this class I was clearly aware of my multiple social identities, although I never analyzed them in the context of a much larger community. For one of our journal assignments my class was asked to check out the site, Stuff White People Like and reflect on how we relate to the stereotypes listed. It was incredibly amusing to me reading about all the different stereotypes and how accurate they were in terms of my interests and
The race is an indefinite term, which has not been created from science or research, but more so the idea of what it is. Essentially, race is all about perception. One person may separate races based on a certain category of traits while another person uses totally different guidelines to define what races there are. Race has ultimately been created socially, therefor has no biological components until people connect the two terms. This paper examines the connection between society and race while taking you through America 's history, and explains the social construction of race.
What if we lived in a world where there were no races? What if people were not discriminated against because of the color of their skin or because they are different from what we see as acceptable? This is what Kwame Anthony Appiah tries to examine in his essay “Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections.” Appiah tries to point out that “American social distinctions cannot be understood in terms of the concept of race.” (102) That America is made up of so many different races that no race is the more superior or in other cases inferior to one another. America is defined by its cultural diversity; it is what makes America the nation that it is. It is the reason that we as Americans have freedoms other people
Why do people now a days discriminate people by colors, eyes, or basically the physical appearance? Generally people say that Asians are smart, blacks are dirty, whites are rich and powerful (soundvisioncom,2015) . Racism is the belief that one race of people are greater than another because of the race they are born into. In other words Racists people judge other people or discriminate them by their race. Nelson Mandela once said (Smhcomau, 2015) “Racism is a human conscience. The idea that any people can be more powerful than another, to the point where those who consider themselves as powerful and treat the rest as sub-human or low ranked people"
People tend to deny, rationalize and avoid discussing their feelings and beliefs about race and ethnicity because they are sensitive topics that people want to avoid. People also deny race and ethnicity because there are uncomfortable feelings, because they are uncomfortable feelings they tend to deny they rationalize because they do not want to hear anything negative about their background, I also think it is part of stigma many people would deny their background. According to out lecture states “Some people by virtue of their ethnic heritage (something they individually had no decision in) believe they are superior or inferior to other simply based on their race or culture”. Therefore, people deny their beliefs, race and ethnicity because
Upon entering the class I was anxious, curious, and also oblivious to the ideas I would be encountering. Like other students who had not previously spent time discussing topics of race and ethnicity, I myself had nervous tendencies in assuming that such a class may not strengthen my understanding of ethnic and race relations. I realized I knew little about race or ethnicity, and even the possible similarities or differences. However, I welcomed the opportunity to further discover the possibilities of the class. My understanding of race was concentrated in a definition that could be understood as different skin colors. My limited conception of ethnicity applied to people’s origin or where they lived. It seemed as though my lack of
In The Social Construction of Race, Ian F. Haney Lopez defines race as a social construct that is constantly changing its meaning due to the fickle nature of society. Lopez believes that this fickleness stems from a social climate formed by a variety of factors such as human economic interest, current events, and ideology. There are certain racial definitions however, that have remained mostly the same despite efforts to bring attention to the offensiveness and immorality of such discriminatory thinking. These stereotypes are oftentimes negative and apply to members of minority races, which end up perpetuating themselves into various cultural outlets of society including the media and film. Through the use of such popular forms of entertainment, the definitions of a race remain largely unchanged as future generations remain exposed to these racial classifications.
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.
Throughout history and across the different cultures, people socially construct ideas of race. All races of people are not biologically different because there is no genes or gene clusters similar to all people of one race, but because people have similar visual traits humans have categorized people as being different. Due to these differences, societies have been known to show tendencies based on the socially constructed races and people develop personal views about the various races from past experiences. In large cities in the United States there are areas where the African American population is more dense, which shows that people draw imaginary boundaries due to race. An example of how the social construction of race is that in the United
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
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.
Allow me to begin this paper with a quick story. Going into this semester, I knew absolutely nothing about philosophy, and I thought that with this class being a Gen Ed, that it was going to be a cakewalk on my way to just getting it out of the way. I quickly learned how wrong that my mind frame going into the class, as it was quickly finding itself digging me a deep hole to crawl into, grade wise. I never realized how deep the roots of philosophy ran, from government to art. This class has opened my eyes to the world around with more depth than I thought was possible. From Plato’s dualism to Nietzsche’ tragic optimism; there are just so many different facets to the realm of philosophy that I have just started to learn about. All in all, Its been successful semester and taking this course has helped open my eyes to the larger world around me, as well as help me decide where I stand on my own philosophy. But before I get into that, allow me to describe to you a few of the things I learned in this class, as well as where I stand on a few of the hotter topics in the world of philosophy.