Race is explained to be a socially constructed concept because just because we look a type of way doesn’t mean that we are what we look. In the movie they had students from a high school to give their blood samples and swab spit samples to show if their backgrounds matched their looks. Some of the students that were African-American said that they would be closer to the other African-American students. The same happened for the Caucasian students and the Latin American students. At the end of the movie, we found out that some of the students looks didn’t match their expected results, such as the white student having African-American roots. What the film showed is that we are all somehow the same type or breed of human because our histories stretch so far back. What this shows us is that just because we look or act a certain way doesn’t mean that is who we are. Society puts titles on us because of our skin colors and a lot of the time that is the only way that people think they can tell us apart. Society and what we read in our history books and reports show that because we look, act, or talk a certain way then that is who we are. In the movie there was a discussion about African-American people and them having a different bone structure or different genes from everyone else because they are more athletic and can run faster. They said that this is true because African-American people are closer to the primate form of monkeys that they said that all humans evolved from. That doesn’t even make sense because there are other people in the world that are just as athletic as African-American people or even sometimes there are people that can run faster and jump higher. Because society says that African-American people are a different breed then it is supposed to be true. Society also says that Asians are supposed to be smarter because of their roots and race but there are people that are smarter. We are all people with similar backgrounds, some of us just look different from others.
The article “Racial Formations” by Omi and Winant shows us different examples of how the social construction of race in American impacts power and privilege. The first example is about Susie Guillory Phipps who sued the Louisiana Bureau of Vital Records because her racial classification was “black” even though she was born and raised to be “white”. According to a 1970 state law anybody that had at least one-thirty-second of “Negro blood” in them were considered to be black. The law was defended because the Assistant Attorney General Ron Davis said that some type of racial classification was necessary to comply with federal records and to help with programs that prevented genetic diseases. Her attorney argued back that according to research of a Tulane University professor most white people have one-twentieth “Negro” ancestry. She ended up losing the case which made people think about different races and identities. Even though Ms. Phipps grew up to be white, looked white, and acted white she did not win her case because her birth certificate listed that she was black. This is an example of how the social construction of race in America impacts privilege. If her birth certificate had said that she was white and she wanted it to say she was black she would’ve had a better chance at winning the case. Another example is the slavery days. “Black” people were looked at to be less of a human than that of white people and back then black people meant anyone that was nonwhite. They had no powers or privileges over anything and anybody and still racism still exists. There are rules that have been said because of racism and some of those rules still exist. It is believed that race can determine the type of music that we listen to, what kind of food we eat, how smart we are, and how athletic that we are and that causes problems because there is no actual way to determine all of these things based on the color of our skin or our “racial background”.
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"Race and Social Construction Assignment".
What we were taught from history and what we see on tv play a part in the social construction of race because we can only go by what we see or hear. What our teachers tell us or what our parents tell us are what we use as a society to figure out who were are and who other people are. What we think we are and what others are is what shapes the way that race is socially constructed. The white kid in the movie said that his family told him that his great grandmother was from the Ukraine so he believed that his background would be from the Ukraine too. When he found out that he had a background of Iceland and Africa in his blood he was surprised because he’s white and he didn’t think there would be any type of African in him at all. Our social structures come from what we value as facts from research, family, and what we are told is our history. This is what constructs race to us and this is what we know to be true about each other.
- Newsreel, C. (Director). (2013). The Difference Between Us: Race – The Power of Illusion [Motion Picture].
- Omi, M., & Winany, H. Racial Formations.
