race+matter



RACE



Race in Today’s Society In our society race plays a very large role in each individual’s life. People are somewhat defined by their race and it affects what jobs they have, relationships, opportunities available and many other aspects of life. We make race matter. That means we also make diversity matter. Schools look for diversity and it is a trait that is considered important in the work place, churches and synagogues, etcetera. When we look at someone who is a different race than us, it stands out more than if they are the same. We consider them different. On the PBS website there is a series of short [|still image videos]about different aspects of race. Naturally humans form groups, and in our society these groups are heavily based on race. The idea of race has not always been existent. According to the PBS [|race timeline], race is a relatively modern idea.

Indeed, according to PBS, the Greeks in 400 BCE, did not care much about physical differences: Ancient views of difference The ancient Greeks differentiate people by culture and language, but not physical differences. In fact, the word "barbarian" comes from the Greek "barbar," which means a person who stutters, is unintelligible, or does not speak Greek. Foreigners, including Africans, can be accepted as Greek citizens if they adopt the language, customs and dress. Conversely, Greece, like Rome, is an "equal opportunity" society that enslaves people regardless of appearance. (red text copied from the PBS race timeline). Now imagine a society where the idea of race does not exist. It may be there physically, but everyone is equal and ungrouped. Diversity does not matter, except in personalities, and there is not any prejudice against any certain people sharing a common characteristic. This world may sound good on paper, but is it really a good thing? Do we need to have different groupings of people in our lives? Does the idea of race give people a much needed identity and place to belong? There is not a defiant answer to these questions, but for now we have the idea of race going strong in our society. Here are some controversial topics involving race that are well and alive in our civilization today:

 ** Does race matter in relationships?

 ** If race matters in relationships, then race as a whole matters a lot. After all, the person you love and spend your life with is extremely important.  There are many people that only feel comfortable marrying within their own race.  Should we all marry within our own race or does it not matter? Could bad things come from interracial marriages, or do they just add to the beautiful diversity of the world?  In an [|interview with John A. Powell] about race, Powell states, // “There’s this curious thing about the way we've defined race in the U.S., where a white woman can have a black child, but a black woman can't have a white child. Obviously that's a social construction; it doesn't make any sense biologically. Throughout U.S. history, the way we've talked about race has shifted over time.” //


 * Does race affect the job a person can hold? **

The [|U.S.Equal Employment Oppurtunnity Commision] states that it is unlawful to not grant a worthy person a job due to racial stereotypes, skin color, ecetera. This is a very specific document and goes over many possiblities for potential law suites. I found it intrigueing when it it states,"//Title VII prohibits race/color discrimination against all persons, including Caucasians.//" A lot of people for get that it is not just Black, Latino, Asian, Indian, Native American, and other people that get discriminated against, it is also white people.

**Does race matter for sushi chefs?

 ** This question may sound strange, but it brings up the point that the race you are affects the job you can hold.  If you were to walk into a Japanese sushi bar and could sit in front of an Asian chef or a blond-haired European chef, who would you choose? [|See Article]

​ **How can you tell what race someone is?**

With all of the people who are a mixture of races in our society, how do we idenify them? How does the goverment identify them? Up until 1960, the American goverment sorted people into races by looking at them. Starting in the year 1970, people were alowd to categorize themselves. There is a [|people sorting quiz] on the PBS website that shows how hard it is to categorize people. After I completed the quiz, I was very suprised at my results. I only got about 1/4 of the answers correct. Imagine the mistakes the goverment must have made when they just looked at people to decide what race they were. It also makes you realize that people are very mixed and there is not always one definate category to classify them in. What features are said to define the majority of people in your race?


 * Do young children stereotype other races? Are new generations less racist?

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Will the next generation care less about race in their life? What type of role will race play?

An experiment carried out by Rebecca Bigler, of the University of Texas, showed that very young children will use whatever is given to them to create divisions. Bigler also concluded that race only becomes an issue if we make it one.

The Newsweek article titled, __[|See Baby Discriminate],__has a very interesting paragraph about how young children see race: //"We might imagine we're creating color-blind environments for children, but differences in skin color or hair or weight are like differences in gender—they're plainly visible. Even if no teacher or parent mentions race, kids will use skin color on their own, the same way they use T-shirt colors. Bigler contends that children extend their shared appearances much further—believing that those who look similar to them enjoy the same things they do. Anything a child doesn't like thus belongs to those who look the least similar to him. The spontaneous tendency to assume your group shares characteristics—such as niceness, or smarts—is called essentialism."//

The Newsweek article titled [|//Rethinking Race in the Classroom//] talks about how many older books use the "n" word and make black people look uninteligent. Some people say that these classics should be banned from schools. Partof the article says: "In early January, just before Obama's inauguration, John Foley, a white high-school teacher in Ridgefield, Wash., penned a guest editorial in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that suggested it was time to stop teaching books that readily use the "N word." Stories that portray African-Americans as inarticulate and unintelligent souls in need of white America often offended both his black and white students. Foley identified "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," "To Kill a Mockingbird and "Of Mice and Men as three books that needed to be reconsidered immediately."

AnnBibMulqueen