Racial discrimination and system racism have greatly formed the history of America. From the start, American society held on brutal kinds of domination, oppression, and inequality which involved a complete lack of freedom for slaves 1 . On contrary, Americans believe that the colonies of America were motivated by the need for freedom, economic and political liberty, and religious liberty. The paradox that lives even today in American history is how the ideals of freedom and equality could coexist with slavery. Throughout American history, opportunity, prosperity, and freedom have been greatly reserved for white people with the intentional exclusion and oppression of black people. Norms that create white supremacy, historical and contemporary practices, and policies are roots of the deep ethnic and racial inequality that exists today in the United States 2 . The systemic racism and racial inequality continue to improperly separate minority communities of color from upward movement and access to opportunities making it challenging for black people to get jobs, better health, quality education, and equal treatment in system of the criminal system. Currently, the United States is in the midst of a watershed moment dealing with its long history of systemic racism and racial inequality that has been tightly interwoven throughout the fabric of the society. The killing of George Floyd by the police in Minnesota in May 2020 has led to continued unrest and protests to address the issue of racism and discrimination at all levels of society. Many of the protests in the United States has been focused on exposing police activities and cases of white people harassing and discriminating against black people in public spaces motivated by racism. The recent unrest following the killing of George Floyd and the shooting of other blacks has awakened the old hatred against the black community and the idea of white supremacy. This paper addresses the current racial unrest in the United States from the anthropological perspective.
From an anthropological perspective, we can categorize biological variations in several ways from short to tall, light to dark, male to female, but all people are members of the same species. Differences in DNA give each individual a unique genetic fingerprint, for example, but the variations remain being genetically human. Any physical variations among people exist within the biological features shared throughout the species. The significance we place on our biological differences varies because cultures determine the way we perceive variation. For instance, in cultures where the color of the skin does not have any relationship to social status, people tend to give little attention to this feature. But in countries like the United States and South Africa skin color is noticed very fast because it has social and political significance. The race was first used to define people who share a common language and denote national affiliation. Early scholars tried to classify humans into subspecies or races based on geographical location and phenotypic features such as skin color and hair texture. In biological terms, the race is a subspecies differing by location or genetically from other populations of the same species. Despite this definition of race, people in the United States still find genetics useful in racial difference. In July 2012, a genealogy business, Ancestry.com, had a report implying that President Obama's mother, just as other white Americans, came from a slave ancestry 3 .The tragic story of Ota Benga’s life, who was a black boy at the Bronx Zoo shows that one part of the human class tried to justify its views of biological and cultural superiority.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Anthropologists rejected the concept of race as being invalid in understanding biological variations of humans and classifying humans and accepted its social construction. Race is a cultural, economic, and political concept in society, but it is not a biological concept. The racial approach to human variation has been so hurting and therefore inappropriate in classifying humans biologically. According to biologists, the race is a subspecies of differing location, morphologically, or genetically from other populations of the same species 4 . One reason why race is not a justifiable biological category of identifying humans is that no scientific procedure exists on how many differences it takes to make a race. For instance, if one researcher uses the color of skin while another uses fingerprint variations, they will end up classifying humans differently. Secondly, no one race has entire possession of any specific variable of any gene. For example, in humans, the occurrence of a trait like the blood type O may be great in one population and few in another, but it is present in both. Thus, populations are free genetically and genes flow between them. Thirdly, many genetic variations occur within a racial group.
Although different human races do not exist biologically, race is an important cultural category. Racism is a belief that one group of people is superior to others based on their distinctive characteristics. Racism has a social reality that has negatively affected the lives of millions of people. Racism persists as a great political problem as politicians have often wrongly used the concept as a means of mobilizing support, eliminating rivals, and discriminating against opponents. From an anthropological perspective, there is no behavioral feature that can be associated with any single group of people that cannot be attributed to cultural practices. For instance, the almost complete exclusion of black people from achievements in golf in the United States had everything to do with the social rules of country clubs and the sport’s expenses 5 . Such behavioral characteristics can be explained in terms of culture.
Systemic racism in form of physical and psychological hurt caused by impersonal, exploitative, and unjust social, economic, and political systems is also amended in societies. For example, in 2010, the United States Congress passes the Fair Sentencing Act, legislation aimed at redressing many years of harsher penalties associated with crack cocaine use, which is primarily associated with African Americans, as compared to the more expensive and equally potent powdered form of cocaine more associated with white drug use. Before the legislation, a white user would have to possess 100 times the amount of powdered cocaine to receive the same sentence as their African American crack using counterpart 6 .
The issue of power is important in every society. Every society faces the challenge of maintaining order, providing safety, solving conflicts, and protecting their property. Power manifests itself as the ability of individuals or groups to impose their will or control upon others and manipulate them to do things they do not wish. Power drives politics. In the political process, groups of individuals support or reject created economic, social, or ideological order as they fight or negotiate with the rival. Political power has grown from no coercive leadership to dictatorial regimes governing millions of subjects with little or no rights of self-determination. Indigenous people have experiences domination and repression from powerful communities, especially in the United States.
Anthropology presents the aspect of culture, where groups of people have their distinctive way of life, manners, beliefs, arts, and so on. Each group of human beings cooperates to ensure survival and welfare. According to anthropologists, the concept of culture goes beyond observable behavior. Every culture is shared, learned, based on symbols, integrated, and dynamic. Although there is a tendency of ethnocentrism, people need to respect and value the cultures of others. Multiculturalism is however an important ideology that supports the institutionalization of society's comparison of multiple cultures. Multiculturalism advocates for equal treatment and respect for the multiple cultures in a community and promotes the maintenance of cultural adversity. In the United States, the policy at the federal level has not established the idea of multiculturalism and therefore remains a topic of controversy.
Bibliography
Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn. Race and racism: An introduction. Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
Haviland, William A., Harald EL Prins, Dana Walrath, and Bunny McBride. The essence of anthropology. Cengage Learning, 2012.
Teslow, Tracy. Constructing race: The science of bodies and cultures in American Anthropology. Cambridge University Press, 2014.
1 Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn. Race and racism: An introduction. Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
2 Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn. Race and racism: An introduction
3 Haviland, William A., Harald EL Prins, Dana Walrath, and Bunny McBride. The essence of anthropology. Cengage Learning, 2012(149)
4 Teslow, Tracy. Constructing race: The science of bodies and cultures in American Anthropology. Cambridge University Press, 2014.
5 Haviland et all., The essence of anthropology (152)
6 Haviland et all., The essence of anthropology (152)
