Race entails a common understanding of the differences in colour of skin, physical attributes and language as well as nationality and religion. It is an idea that the society of America is fixed on and as such leaves no room for open mindedness in the event that the idea of racial categories is challenged. The term “race” has experienced major changes in usage over the past years with these changes being between the sociological and biological views of the term (Schaefer, 2014). The following paper discusses the social structure and biological views of race.
Race as a Social Construct
The New York Times argues that race is a social construct because its definition is by skin colour, texture of hair, shape of eye, ancestry, performance of identity and even the name and hardly does it imply that the classifications of race are free of the consequence and tangible effects. The social meaning that people have attached to social construction over the years makes it extremely important. Race is a social construction that sees the oppressor benefit and acts to define and differentiate privileged groups from those that are not.
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Examples of Social Construction
History has shown social construction in use in several of ways and in different frames of time. The following section elaborates a few examples among the numerous examples of social construction that exist. The examples will further show that race has been a useful tool in the political arena for quite some time.
The first example is Adolf Hitler that was majorly concerned with the “Jewish Race” and facilitated the Holocaust and death camps of the Nazi. The events led to the murder of at least a third of the Jewish people on the basis of social construction as determined by Adolf Hitler. Social construction has been used harshly against races as history would insist.
The second example is that of Winston Churchill who used social construction to spur a fight in the nation by being extremely proud of the British race. Churchill employed social construction to enable his country fight for what he perceived to be best for country.
The Southern United States saw social construction of race being used and referred to as a top rule. The one drop rule insisted that a person should be viewed as black if they had a drop of black blood in them. Therefore, it becomes evident that social construction has been part and parcel of the lives of people for many years and determines most of the things people do.
Social construction and the Traditional View of Race
Biological race by definition is the population segregated biologically that breeds and shares certain characteristics in frequencies that are higher than other species of that population but has not been isolated reproductively from the other populations belonging to the same species. The racial classifications of early time’s entailed three groups that were Caucasoid, Mongoloids and the Negroids but later saw the addition of the Australoids and Capoids (Schaefer, 2014). It is also seen from research, that traits like nervous habits and temperament are inheritable among the minority groups. One can thus see that both the biological view of race and social construction group people although in different ways. Both have had and continue to have long lasting effects on the human race.
View of Race that Contributes to cultural diversity
It appears that research would concur with the fact that social construction of race significantly contributes to cultural diversity. It has been in so many ways used and entails and dictates the ways in which humans attach to social meanings (Schaefer, 2014).
Assimilation, Melting pot, Pluralism and Fusion
Assimilation refers to the process by which subordinate groups take up the traits and characteristics of a dominant group. Melting pot entails the situation whereby people from various backgrounds join and make a new culture. Fusion on the other hand refers to the combination of a minority and a majority to form a new group. Pluralism refers to the different societal groups that have mutual respect for one another and their individual cultures.
References
Schaefer, R. T. (2014). Racial and ethnic diversity in the USA. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs
