1. Summary
Race is now seen as a social construct, and the perceived
reasons for creating this method of human classification are often
controversial as the identity they force upon a person often affects his/her
social “rank”. Evidence that supports the case of race being a social construct
can be found in US and Brazil racial classifications. US’ racial
classifications change over time, seemingly adding more can more races as time
passes. Brazil on the other hand, even though it has a set number of races, has
citizens who often try to “self-lighten” in order to be perceived better. Race
does not seem to have a set definition and is dependent one’s opinions, lending
truth to the claim that it is a social construct.
Ethnicity on the other hand, is much more defined than Race.
Race seems to look at physical attributes, and is often externally defined.
Ethnicity on the other hand, looks at a person’s history; their nationality,
tribe, faith, language, culture and traditions. These historical facts allow
one to derive an ethnicity, instead of imposing a race.
With the study of race comes the study of prejudice, bias
and discrimination. The different between prejudice and bias is how the
judgement is derived. Prejudice involves judgement before interaction, while
bias involves judgement after multiple interactions. Discrimination is acting
negatively upon one’s prejudice or bias. The good news is that prejudice and
bias is a learned trait, and thus can be unlearned.
Racism is a term that can refer to all 3 of the
above-mentioned terms (prejudice, bias, discrimination). It is a violation of
human rights, and is usually opposed by the mainstream voices of a country.
Society is not only segregated by constructs such as race,
but also by something seemingly scientific like gender. Although it seems that
a person’s sex and gender might seem predetermined by physical attributes, the
variations are actually quite large. Human beings are born with so many minute
differences that what we see as a strong dichotomous state of sex is actually a
generalization.
Sex refers to a person’s assigned physical trait into
socially constructed categories determined by biological factors. Gender on the
other hand is a person’s own perceived identity between masculine and feminine
behaviors. Between sex and gender are 2 classifications of Cis and Trans, where
Cis describe people who conform to existing notions, while Trans describe
people who don’t. Trans gender/sex
usually refer to people who can identify with more than just either masculine
or feminine behavior, and is usually met with harassment or discrimination
(cissexism/transphobia).
This blurring of current gender and sex norms bring into
question certain social or psychological differences such as occupation, salary
and education. The past saw females as a smaller part of the workforce due to
society’s view of them as the caregivers of the family, leading to an unbalance
in their careers and in turn wages. If
done on purpose, this unbalance can be seen as a form of discrimination
(Sexism). Sexism can be any form of belief that there are only two sexes, a
superiority of a certain sex, a divide between the sexes or a hatred of a
certain sex.
From a Structural Functionalist point of view, gender is
viewed as a means to define responsibilities, where the women are homemakers and
the men are breadwinners. Conflict theory sees gender classifications as a
fight to balance the power within relationships.
2. Something of interest to me
It does seem that current society views race as a very
strong method to classify and strengthen one’s “group of people”, aka the race
in which they belong to. In the age of
globalization, ancient reasons for differing physical attributes do not hold as
strongly as before. For example, the harsh solar conditions of Africa that led
to the darkening of one’s skin do not matter as much in a world where people
have the ability to go anywhere they want. As stated in the article, there are
certain races or ethnicities that have a resistance to different kinds of
diseases. Is there a possibility that humans can evolve a biological need to
diversify, where a mixing of different ethnicities leads to an overall stronger
population? The need for racial classification would be gone, because the world
sees racial segregation as a “weak” trait.
3. Discussion point
I think that the presence of categorisation in humans, such
as race or gender whether or not it is socially constructed, is a means by
which we try to understand the world around us. If everything is defined by
such clear cut factors like one’s history in determining ethnicity, is it
something that we can truly identify with? In the same way that transgender
people should be given the liberty to choose what behaviour they identify with,
shouldn’t people who “self-whiten” be allowed to do so, if it makes them feel
better? Then again, maybe this actually further propagates racial inequality.
But if the social constructs are here to stay, why stop people from feeling
happier?
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