In my anthropology class last semester, the class was given some questions:
1.What is race?
2. What distinguishes different races from one another?
3. What are some examples of these distinguishing characteristics?
My answer to the first question was that race was a categorization of peoples by lineage. Africans come from Africa. African-Americans are Africans who are American citizens. Asians come from Asia. Asian-Americans come from Asia and are American citizens. Native Americans were native to the Americas. Etc., etc.
My answer to the second question was, as I said, lineage. Where a person’s ancestors came from defines what race they belong to.
My answer to the third question was “hair color/type, eye color/type, skin color, height.” The more I thought about this, however, the more I realized all we base race on is entirely subjective. This, of course, was my professor’s entire plan. “Race is a myth,” she said, “At least race as it is perceived.” Her point was, while it is accurate to base “race” on lineage by exploring a person’s genealogy, the things we judge race on currently (the things I mentioned above, as well as others) are completely subjective and easily manipulated.
In biology, there is a genus, a species, and a sub-species. Race comes in at the sub-species level, where minor variations happen because of the climate, terrain, etc., or even just a simple mutation. When biologists classify a sub-species, they look for a variation in the sub-species’ genes that is different than the species level. However, in American society, as well as nearly every other society around the world, the sub-species that is race is determined solely on appearance. This, of course is because the common person has not the equipment necessary to determine if the genes of this one varies from the genes of that one, but even this fact does not make it right.
The truth is, I yearn for a time of “racial” equality in the way that race as we know it is nonexistent. I cannot wait for a time when a person is not described as “African-American” or “Asian” or the like, but described with actual descriptive words such as “fair skinned” or “dark skinned”. A time when such descriptors as “black” and “white” do not come with a set of “racial” descriptors tied to them.
“What does your friend look like?”
“He has dark, curly hair, dark skin, and brown eyes.”
“Oh, so he’s African-American?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask him.”
So, I would like to know what you think about race. Is it a myth? Is categorizing people by race necessary or an outdated practice? Do you think we can ever do away with categorizing by race? What do you feel your “race” is categorized by and do you think that it is fair? Is there anyone out there who is categorized by race, but is not actually that race? Are there any benefits to categorizing by race? Does this practice have any merit?
Let me know, and also please let me know what you think of my writing. I’m always trying to improve upon it. …however, this is my first blog, so please be gentle.
This is too weird, I'm in cultural Anthropology right now and we finished discussing race not too long ago. Anthropologists say race is a myth that people came up to deal with people different than them. I believed they had three classes from savages, barbarians, and civilized. Americans had raced based on skin color and hypodescent while in Brazil it was based on a list of physical attributes called Tipos. I really don't we could ever get rid of race, it's been around too long, I want to say it's a culture thing but use skin color as an excuse. I don't know the exact words for it, I'm Chinese so my upbringing is different. Don't worry about your blog, this is my first time making one too.
Yes, we talked about Brazilian "tipos" too. Which is proof that what we base race off of here in the U.S. isn't something ingraned into us, but racial catigorization is.
Thanks so much for the comment, and also, I'm glad to see someone else new at blogging!
Genetically there are more differences between people of the same race, than between people of so called different races. Actually one can only speak about one race, being the human race.
Hitler was partly responsible for making it a big popular issue that was supported by the herd he was moulding which kept the myth around so called different races alive, even upon this day.
The bottom line is that there is no such thing as human races.
In case it would be the case, we would for long have been living In a complete different world, a world were everyone would look the same and be ugly as hell.
A book that I have been reading recently, One Blood, goes along with this topic. The book is about a Literary Critic that was fair skinned but came from Creole heritage (dark skinned). At the time he was influential he had decided to claim white on all application forms because of the stigmas that were associated with being black. His heritage was a family secret for many years because he did not want to be constrained by his race.
Just thought I would let you guys know in case you are interested in reading this book