This week in American Studies, we have been discussing race. What is race? How would we define it? The documentary we watched added to this theme. Personally, this theme grabs my attention, and I have taken some time to think about it outside of school.
My definition of "race" is someone's ethnic background, relating to the countries from which his or her ancestors came. Race and religion are completely separate, and someone's race is not always related to his or her skin color. In my opinion, "white" and "black" are NOT races; they are simply skin colors. "British," "French," "Chinese," "African," etc. are races, as they are adjectives describing actual countries and continents.
Different races have different values and cultural aspects; no race is the exact same as another, although some may be similar. For example, the Asian culture strongly promotes education. Some races do not get along well with each other because they have different beliefs. For instance, the Israelis and Palestinians are in conflict because they disagree on who should be given Israel. In the United States, we have gotten to know many different races because so many people of different ethnic backgrounds have immigrated here.
I am interested in hearing your opinion...
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I too think this topic is very intriguing. It is amazing that such a simple question is so difficult to answer. When I first attempted to define race I didn't really know where to begin. I have always believed that a person is born a certain race and dies the same one. There is no changing it. Therefore, I discarded the idea that a persons nationality is their race. You can be born a German citizen and die an American one. Then I began to think about heritage, that a person's ancestory might be their race. I discarded that idea as well. I thought about how the borders of African countires were created by Europeans with no regard to the natives. People who shared the same culture and traditions suddenely had different nationalities. Nothing about those people changed because a border was put between them, so in my opinion they are still the same race.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, my whole life I have thought that a persons skin color is their race. I only tried to incorporated nationality in my definition so I wouldn't feel like a racist. But really, I don't think race needs to have any connection to heritage or culture. I think that these days people will do anything to avoid seeming ignorant or racist. That's why so many people say African American and Caucasian when they are really thinking black and white. It's also the reason that when asked to define race, no one wanted to say it is the color of a person's skin. People often assume that calling someone white or black means you are implying they are the same as every other person of that skin color. I kinda think that this apparent over-sensitivity to race (in my opinion the color of someone's skin) is the reason society is so timid and fake when discussing the topic.
Are words describing continents and countries of origin really adequate enough descriptions of race? I tend to think that has more to do with nationality, otherwise the way of classifying races gets a bit too inconsistent, as it hardly seems equivalent to consider "Chinese" a race, which is just one asian country, and then say "African" is a race, which is an entire continent.
ReplyDeleteI looked up the word Caucasian a while ago and it made me think our concept of race is a lot more about superficial differences than anything else, at least in the way we categorize people. Caucasian refers to an extremely diverse group of people, some originating in Asia, some in Africa, some in Europe. However, the US essentially considers Caucasian to mean 'white American,' because that's most convenient.
What confuses me the most is how you're supposed to categorize people if national boundaries can be iffy, physical differences don't say anything about a person, genetic differences are extremely variable and aren't convenient or sensible to measure, etc. From there it seems that trying to categorize things gets hopelessly complicated, as you have to take a million different things in to consideration, and the most important identity-related things may depend on what the individual person thinks of themselves because of their culture rather than their heritage. Peoples' racial identity can have a large impact on the way they identify growing up, but what's a way to categorize race accurately if it can mean different things to different people? Is it best to make racial classifications as broad as possible or as specific as possible...? Meh.
"culture rather than their heritage."
ReplyDelete*cultural environment rather than their genes