First of all, I enjoyed a lot in my first sociology class at srjc, with a wonderful professor. Even though it was a late night class when half of the people tended to fall asleep, I have always thought that my professor greatly taught us more about what I have already known - more of the insights and perspectives about race and ethnicity. I mean, it is just some things that I think it is good to know a little bit about in my entire life.
What is race ? is race real? does race exist? Most of the people will def say that race do exist and it is real.
there is such thing as race? From this point of view, people say that there are different patterns of the way people look in physical appearance such as hair, skin color, eye shapes and bone structures etc. But making labels for the patterns and socializing according to those patterns is a social construction. In America, or to narrow it down, in a public school institution, we obviously have different physical attributes and that can show different races among people. So many questions are raised to ask that if there is no such thing as race, why is there still racism in society?
From another point of view by saying how there is no such thing as race, I would think that we are not simply similar, it is more than just a fact that we are all the same species capable of mating with any others and producing normal, viable offspring. I guess same race means the same species?
In class, we learned that there is no such thing as race because biologically we are all very similar. The only difference are the melanin, keratin and hemoglobin in our skin. That I realize how cool is that our physical bodies are different, was based on geographical places for our ancestor to adapt in certain areas. For those near the equator were in a sunnier, hotter area. The melanin acts like a built in sunscreen against radiation. More melanin means more pigment. And light skin was developed since there was less sun in Northern latitudes, adaptations were made in order to absorbed vitamin D. And that is why the people who have darker skin have better protection from the sun versus the people who have lighter skin. Because in history, our ancestors’ physical appearance were developed in different geographical area that it was needed for them to survive in their environment. And this is why blacks tend to be good at sports because of their body structure were developed as that their ancestors had to have certain ability/skills to survive in a long time ago .. You get what I mean….
As what race is, it is certainly a social construct. It was meant to separate and segregate people of different traits. I wonder how long it will be before people figure this out.
Again, what I learned in my class and from some of the readings, race is often a human perception and a way we identify each other. I mean, sure people who we identify as Asian have slanted eyes, black straight hair and ‘yellow’ complexion and other ethnicities - but that’s just humanity’s way of arranging concepts in accordance to their common characteristics to avoid confusion. I think we ourselves make up this, and that there is no such thing as race from this point of view. Also, what gives members of these races a feeling of belonging to a group and sharing things in common with other people are the culture, amongst other things.
I have learned that race is really not a way to classify people of different cultures, but it is more of a means to classify people that are genetically different.
It is hard to say if Race really exists or not. It can exists from certain point of view and it can not exist if it is in another different point of view. In all, we all have the same ancestors but it is hard to think that there is no such thing as “white people,” “black people.” “brown people” or “yellow people.” I guess that’s why racism still exists.
xFormosaL
