There were two main ideas driving the reading this week. The first point was that race theories are societal constructs with no genetic basis whatsoever, which can change over time based on factors such as economic standing, education, and personal achievements. The second point was that even though the American population has become so multi-colored, the general perception of race is still on a black-to-white scale as opposed to national identity.
I thought about it, and I realized that the author is completely right. Proof of the first point is in the different descriptions of race and/or phenotype between countries, which vary greatly. If race was not a social construct and was actually heredity-based, wouldn’t everyone in the world share the same racial classification system? The fact that racial classification is different in different parts of the world means that race is dependent on a variety of factors, but it’s certainly not the result of any kind of scientific or objective fact.
As for the second point, I am guilty of casting people into a White vs. Black vs. Hispanic vs. Asian racial category as well. For instance, even though I have definitely asked Clarissa, Corina (sorry if I spelled it wrong), Jeffrey, Shirley, and Sandra where they are from and I know that Sandra is from Hong Kong, Corina’s family is from China, and Jeffrey’s family is from Taiwan, if someone were to ask me who any of them were I would describe them as Asian. Thanks to this reading, I am going to make it a goal of mine to start distinguishing peoples’ national origins as opposed to putting them into racial categories.
In terms of nowadays, I think part of the fault for racism lies in the education system. According to a study done five years ago, American students came in second-to-last on an international survey testing geographic knowledge:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/0502_060502_geography.html
http://articles.cnn.com/2006-05-02/politics/geog.test_1_map-geographic-knowledge-young-people?_s=PM:EDUCATION
I think that part of the reason that race description is so commonly used is because people in this country do not know basic geography in or outside the U.S. Therefore, saying that “Joe comes from Namibia” means nothing to them, versus saying that “Joe is black” does. The first step towards dispelling racial labels and identifying immigrants by nationality as opposed to stereotypes that might be completely inaccurate is to reform the education system. People need to know geography before they can start describing immigrants by country of origin as opposed to race.
