White Race As A Social Construct

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.

Racism is a concept that has been around for centuries of human history: The act of a privileged party oppressing, demeaning, and committing genocide of another race. However, scientifically, humanity is only made up of a single species: homosapiens. The idea of race as it is known (groups based on skin pigment and cultural descent) is a social construct created and ingrained into society. Just because race is socially constructed does not mean racism is not real. Social constructs are not physical entities, but are certainly “real” to humans of a society. One concept that has been created along with the idea of race is the inequality of said races. Caucasian people in many societies (including North American and European) have become the “norm”, meaning they are the standard and expected. Because of this, Caucasian people receive benefits, often known as white privilege, which is “A collective, implicit acceptance of whiteness as virtuous, normal, unremarkable, and expected.” (Jeffries, 2013). Because race is socially constructed in culture, it has created white privilege and white normativity. This privilege can be seen in the media created and consumed by North Americans, and in the justice system and law upheld in North American countries.

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.

Race and ethnicity play a role in every aspect of the criminal justice system, especially when comparing victimization rates. In class, we were placed into groups to discuss race and ethnicity. Most of the class said ethnicity is your cultural background whereas race is your physical appearance. Although the class had similar answers, no one group had exactly the same answer (CCJ345W). According to Barak in his chapter “Understanding Race”, race is socially defined by traits such as “physical characteristics, national origin, language, culture, and religion”(Barak, 2011:46).

Race is a social construct that was developed to classify people into vast different groups through ethnic, anatomical, cultural, genetic, historical, linguistic, geographical, and social attachment. Initially, race referred to people using a common language to identify national affiliations, but with time observable physical traits were used to denote race. The idea of race means that humans are divisible into biologically distinct and exclusive groups in terms of physical and cultural features. The ideology of race is also associated with the beliefs of the superiority of white people. These beliefs were concretized during the Scientific Revolution and American colonization that established political relations between Europeans and people with different cultural and political backgrounds. Therefore, race is a social construction, the idea that people have perceived through their daily interaction. Race does not have any significance in taxonomy because all humans belong to the same species, Homo sapiens. Assertions from various scholars

What I learned is that the social construction of race is the way society sees race. For example, stereotyping people of different races, or what people consider a race is. Is your race the color of your skin, your physical features, your heritage? Or something else entirely? Because this question has no definitive answer, society constructs their own definition of "race".

Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s arguments from “Racial Formations” are about how race is socially constructed and is shown in Caucasia by Danzy Senna. Michael Omi and Howard Winant believe that race is socially constructed in society; therefore, the meaning of race varies within different cultures and societies. According to Omi and Winant, influences such as, media, school, politics, history, family and economy create society’s structure of race. In Caucasia, media, family and school are forces that create race by stating how one should conform to social norms for different racial groups.

American society consists of many equal races, yet people believe that as a white American, I am more privileged than others. However, I have learned that race is not the only factor that determines my status or position in life. In addition, the concept of white privilege is not as prominent in younger generations. Despite the assumptions made by others about the privileges whites are given, there are circumstances where being white negatively impacts me.

Most people today might assume that our society’s concept of race—as a system of white supremacy—formed as an inevitable conclusion of the idea of white superiority. However, while the two concepts are indeed intrinsically linked, the order of the relationship is often misunderstood. One did not beget the other; in fact, the two concepts arose simultaneously in the late 1600s, following Bacon’s Rebellion. If one examines the history of race in America, one will find that our idea of race has its roots in the ruthless capitalist pragmatism of the elite, with white supremacy simply serving as an effective means to an end.

I do think that some races are social construct. Some races based on society’s beliefs and their perspective on things. Some races are considered to be in a different category than it was from years ago and it makes you question society as a whole. Are they separating races based on teir belief? Are they considering the biological suspects of humans as a whole? I feel like “race” should not be a term that is used to distunguish humans into categories. However, reading over material and watching videos, it made me look at things in a different perspective. Some people of different races have a lot of similarites. I feel like they catergorize race upon their belief and political process. How can one’s race change after generations to come? I

Good evening, from this week reading I have learned that race is social construction. According to social conventions no one born "black" or "white" but people label each other as black and white. The most interesting thing I found in this weekly reading was racial democracy has been widely spread in Brazil than the United States of America. However, in my opinion, color of skin still affect the life chances in both Countries. For instance, in both Countries lighter skinned African descent have more advantage than darker skinned. In addition, as it mentioned in the book, In South Africa, people of African descent hold a majority of the population. So, why were white people still racially dominating in South Africa even after Apartheid

The role of this article was to prove the fact that “whiteness” is a social construct and not a racial identity, which, in her own opinion, needs to be demolished. Expanding on this point, the author states it to be designed for the creation of a superior social group and how membership to this social superior group wasn’t based on skin color, but on social status instead. Additionally, she also states that due to the fact that “whiteness” is a social construct, its ideals are also bound to change over time as well, which is demonstrated in this case , through the example of the Irish being initially excluded from the idea of whiteness in the early 20th century. Here, she elaborates further on how the Irish later became incorporated into this “superior social group” to prevent the low-wage Irish and African-Americans from forming an economic bloc and to also slow down the economic competitiveness of African-American

Social construct may be defined as the social mechanism or a category which has been created by the society. It may either be a perception which is created by an individual or an idea which is constructed as a result of the culture. The present society has created a large number of constructs which are not good. In this paper, the discussion will be done on the social construction of race and gender and the problems associated with the same. In addition to this, how can social construct forms to be the basis for discrimination and prejudice will be discussed? Further, racism and sexism will be discussed with examples. Further discussion will be done on patriarchy and its role in racism and sexism will be added.

positive thing. This idea can be delve more from the Critical Race Theory that later created due to the civil rights movement in the 20th century.

As a non-white person, “white” has two meanings. One was assigned by society, “white” is people with white skin. The other, by science, “white” is a color produced when all the light waves are reflected. I feel like the term “white” when referring to skin tones, was created to distinguish between the superior and the inferior. I am going to use the British empire as an example to prove this point because it was the empire on which “the sun never set”. As the British empire successfully expanded, its military and financial stability allowed it to easily conquer and subjugate people of different nations. Britain captured and enslaved African Americans, Native Americans as well as Indians (not Native Americans). For the British as well as the