In this week’s articles, the pieces primary focus was on the distinction of race and ethnicity as others before me have already mentioned. I found this week’s articles very shocking because of the way, people, mainly those who migrate to the United States are being classified as either black, or white. In the chapter by Foner and the article by Crowder, they discus how West Indian people are forcefully grouped in with black people, and are always being associated with them, even though they have vastly different cultural beliefs and traditions.
What I didn’t understand at all is how people try to associate different groups of immigrants, as being “black” or “white”. The system of classifying people runs in a way that only leads to more prejudice and racism within the societies of New York. After all, what does it really mean to be “black” or white”? To call somebody “black” or “white” would be an insult because, by calling them black or white, it could relate so many different things. In today’s society, it could mean being Jewish, Italian, Irish, or of many other descents. It just seems fundamentally wrong to classify somebody as black or white, instead of calling them by who they really are.
West Indian people, shouldn’t be classified as black, but they should be classified as West Indian. The information that Foner presents, that in today’s culture, West Indians are considered black, and that Jewish people along with the Italians are considered white, is very disrespectful, because it is a misrepresentation of who they really are. It obscures their true cultural identity, and many times, detracts from the way they are viewed. As we can see from the tragedy of Trayvon Martin, being labeled as “black” can sometimes have very unfortunate outcomes because it makes you judge somebody prematurely, without knowing the person. If it were up to me, people shouldn’t be put into the classified by being black and white anymore, or even by their cultural backgrounds, but by their character, because that is the most important part of an individual.
