What Is Your First Recollection Of Race?

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.

When I was young I didn’t really realize the impact of being African-American until high school. I went to a predominately white school for elementary and middle school. I was just like any other youth. I had my group of friends who were white; I was active in school activities and clubs. I was a student athlete and I got along well with my teachers. Everyone saw me as an upbeat person with a bubbly personality. Surprisingly, race was never brought up it wasn’t an issue for me during that period of my life. However, as I got older I realize there was a difference. As an adult I could really see the prejudice in others. I recall working a on a special project for the

I always identified myself as Mexican because technically I was mostly Mexican, but I didn’t speak Spanish and was never really accepted by my Spanish speaking peers. I also remember not wanting to be identified as White, I was an American but I didn’t want to be called White. I idolized Martin Luther King Jr. as a young child, and I remember feeling deeply moved and fundamentally changed after seeing the first images of the civil rights movement during Black history month. Then I remember starting to wonder why I always saw the same videos and learned the same lessons each year during February and I began to question things. I remember getting so angry at my own ignorance of the history of racism in this country during my first multi-cultural history class at Cal State Long Beach. I realized how much I wasn’t learning in school and that I never got an authentic version of history from any group other than the dominant White culture. It was an eye opening experience and it had a profound impact on me. I learned to embrace being an American as long as I was willing to commit to continuously questioning and challenging the current power structures in place and work to expose the institutionalized racism that continues to plague our public

At the age of six, one of my first memories is my mother walking down the street, holding my hand, and being verbally assaulted by a women, saying that people with my skin color do not belong

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

At the time I did not know what race really meant, I thought the race was just like ethnicity, I did not even think about race as

Throughout this course, I have read many articles that have left distinct imprints on how I view things. I used to think of gender, race and class as something natural and meaningful. However, after this course I am inclined to feel differently. It is truly upsetting that each social construct results in some type of disadvantage for some and empowerment for others.

I believe race is so central to how we organize social life in many societies because it has been the defining factor that breaks humans apart from one another just based off of something as simple as sight. It is the easiest way to classify individuals aside from gender or nationality. Race has also become something that individuals have personally adopted, and I believe many people are more comfortable being around those that share the same characteristics as themselves.

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.

There were whole families of this different race that I hadn’t had much experience with. Of course, I didn’t see anything wrong with them, I was just unaware at how many people of the different color were in the same place at the same time. Being in the second or third grade, they try not to bring racism up nearly as much so I wasn’t fully knowledge on why they were different, and I was unaware that they got treated badly. Well I was just about to learn all about this simple, or not so simple word, racism.

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

My mother is Caucasian, my father is African American. I am a mix between the two. As I got older and was able to fully comprehend the world around me, I started to realize I was being treated differently when I was with my mom. Trips to the grocery store made it more personal. White people were quick to smile at me and were always very pleasant. Blacks would simply ignore my gestures. Things were the opposite when I was with my dad, White people would avoid eye contact, wouldn’t smile at me when I smiled at them. Black people were quicker to return my gestures. Completely different than when I was with my mother. As a young child, this was very confusing and hurtful.

I took the time today to read the article titled “What is Race” by Victor M. Fernandez, RN, BSN and found myself agreeably intrigued and in admiration of his thoughts regarding race. Victor touched on an extremely insightful and significant topic; one that most people have sturdy opinions about. Race – what is it? What does this mean to you? What does it mean to our upcoming careers in the nursing field? I trust that how we characterize and assess our awareness of race is due exclusively to how we were raised. I do not mean merely what we were taught from our family or culture about race, but to a certain extent how we have lived it, and how it has lived around us. “Race is a modern idea. Ancient societies, like the Greeks, did not divide