The question of race has been lingering in our minds for the longest time. Is race a biological phenomenon? What about ethnicity is it socially constructed. There are several contemporary theories that view these categories not as biological divisions as commonly assumed but as social construct (Adelman, 2003) . When it comes to race or ethnicity people look at the color of a person’s skin, the eye color or the language they speak. Sociologist views these categories as social constructs. This means that as much as we think of certain things like a race to be a natural phenomenon, sociologist do think differently they have an open mind and think that a society is a product of many things (Adelman, 2003) . Therefore, these categories do take more meaning because they are shaped differently by different society. It can be said that people collectively assign things meaning this phenomenon comes from a perspective that socialists call constructivism. These means that people do come to some understanding of some ideas because society made them exist.
It will be wrong to assume that prejudice and discrimination do not exist today. In our society today everywhere we look one cannot help but see the difference in wealth and status. Some ethnic groups have a higher status than other. Mostly the white people are considered to have a higher status than others and are now known as white privilege. The inequality in the society is referred to as social stratification (Higginbotham, 2015) . In this system of inequality, there are usually some ethnic groups that are unfairly treated and it is usually referred to as discrimination. In the United States today most discrimination is usually based on race or ethnicity prejudice is usually the outcome of discrimination that leads to a negative attitude towards a certain group of people
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There are several areas where discrimination and prejudice can occur in any society. A very good example is the difference in salaries between different genders and race groups. Most Mexicans in the United States are paid less than any overage American doing the same job. And they justify this by saying that the Mexicans do not pay taxes of which this is a stereotype (O’Neill, 2013) .
In the workplace, there are usually lots of discrimination allegations from racial to gender bias a good example is the recent fox news scandals of discriminations. The chairman of Fox news Roger Ailes faced a lot of sexual harassment claims and allegations of racial discrimination. In a lawsuit filed on June 2016 at the state supreme court in the Bronx New York two African American women said that they were subjected racial harassment in the payroll offices of fox news by a long-term employee of the news firm Judith Slater. Judith Slater was accused of several racially charged comments about black men that black men beat women and that black people are a threat to white people because they want to physically harm white people. Ms. Slater claimed that black people cannot pronounce other words like “mother”“, father”, and month. She asked one of the plaintiffs if her three children were fathered by one man.
Another prejudice faced by minority groups in the United States is police brutality and racial profiling. Black children from the tender age of 11 are targeted by police with the youngest ever killed by police for having a toy gun being only 12. Freddie Gray a 25-year-old black male was shot and killed by police based on the fact that he was a suspicious black male (Jee-Lyn García, 2015) . Raising a black child in this day and age in the United States means that the parent has to prepare the child to face racism in all its forms.
On a personal level race and ethnicity has influenced my life in ways an imaginable. To this day I face discrimination for not belonging to a certain group of people. There are instances I am afraid to enter into certain establishments because of the looks I will get if I do, people may look down on me as if the establishment only belongs to a certain group of people. Barbershops are one of those establishments most barbershops are made for certain groups of people and if a different race walks in they will look out of place. Racial discrimination is common globally and it’s even worse in the United States due to the diversity of races. In the United States, people prefer the company of their own ethnicity subconsciously over people of other ethnicities that are according to my own observation.
Then there are the issues of white privilege, in a sense people of white ethnicity are more privileged more than other races in the United States. Peggy McIntosh believes that white people are usually taught not to recognize that they have privileges the same way men do not recognize that they are more privileged than women (McIntosh, 1988) . Peggy McIntosh believes that white privilege is an invisible asset that white people have and they do not earn the privilege they just get it and that the white man remains oblivious of his privilege.
I personally cannot say I have had white privilege however I have witnessed on many occasions white privilege on other white people. A good example is the immigrants who come to the United States, immigrants of white decent easily fit in the United States in comparison to other races who have a harder time from the word go at the immigration offices and the application of green cards. It is easier for a white immigrant to start a business in the United States than a nonwhite.
My initial reaction when I started following the documentary Race the Power of Illusion was that finally, I get to have answers to the things that have been dividing our great nation since its formation. In the very first episode I got to learn more about the human variations and the myths of race from people who are ethnically diverse that is a microbiologist, a biological anthropologist, historian, and an evolutionary biologist (Adelman, 2003) . The interviews that were covered in the documentary were of scientific and American socio-historical aspects of race. This included the origin of mankind in Africa, gene mutation. The documentary also talks about some superficial traits, complex traits. One of the most interesting parts of the documentary was the Jim Crow segregation laws and the racial purification practiced by the Nazis (Adelman, 2003) . I could not believe the kind of racially motivated hatred that occurred in the past this was the most mind-blowing and most disturbing part of the documentary. The documentary also shows the significance of black athlete’s success in the thirties and what it meant to racial relations.
The documentary shows a group of students who come from different racial and ethnics groups participating in DNA experiments the student’s main of the experiments is to explore the biology of human variations. When the students start their experiment they immediately assume that their DNA results will march other students who are the same race as them. That is the white students DNA will much the DNA of another white student in the room (Adelman, 2003) . The same case applies to students to other students of different races there was some Hispanic Asian and black students in the room. By the end of the experiments, the students did prove that genetic data does not prove the assumptions of racial ancestry. The workshop proved that generic variations disapprove that race is biology and further claims that race is a man-made and that it is used to create inequality.
The next episode was also very interesting since it talked about the evolution of race in the United States as we all know race has been a major factor hindering this country from reaching its full potential. In this second episode anthropologists discussed in great detail how race has evolved over time explaining how unequal treatment was justified by skin color despite the fact that the constitution of the country clearly stated that all men are equal (Turner, 2014) . Another interesting part that I found in the documentary was realizing that Thomas Jefferson who was the other of the declaration of independence and a slave owner was the first person to articulate the theory of race in the United States. This all happened in the year 1786 where he gave his views on the difference between whites, blacks, and Indians. Another interesting part that I found was that they used since to prove that African Americans were an inferior race.
In the third episode of the documentary, I got a clear view of how white privilege came to be. The documentary teaches us how institutional policies did impact socioeconomic of other races that were not white. During the 20th century, the United States started receiving a huge number of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe; this was when the Americans started looking at people in a radicalized manner (Higginbotham, 2015) . The immigrants were subjected to low paying jobs that were mint for inferior races that is the blacks, Mexicans, and Chinese (Adelman, 2003) . At the time Europeans were not fully categorized American a new word was coined the “melting pot “ to describe the time of reformation from European to an American citizen, this goes to show that racial relations started a very long time ago and took so many forms that they even segregated Europeans.
Project Implicit Bias
Gender and career
I took an implicit bias test of gender and career, the test was interesting at the same time challenging, I had to think very fast and act quickly in answering the questions. The tests that I took are referred to an Implicit Association Test (IAT). The test was all about associating male and female words with career and family words. My scores were suggested that I associated male with career and female with family. Without a doubt, my scores suggested that I preferred careers with men more than women.
Race
I did take an implicit bias test on race. The test was not hard as I had initially imagined but there were some few challenges here and there but I managed. The test was about categorizing good and bad words with images of African Americans and European Americans. My data results suggested that I had a slight automatic preference for African Americans over European Americans.
Arab Muslim
I did take an implicit bias test on Arab Muslim, by this was the hardest of implicit bias tests that I have ever taken, this is because of the hard English and Arab names than I could not differentiate. The test aimed at categorizing words of good and bad with words of Arab Muslims and Other People. My test results indicated that I had no automatic preference between Arab Muslims and Other People.
Skin Tone
I did take an implicit bias test on skin tone this test was easy since it was more visual. In comparison to others that I had to read. The test was all about categorizing good and bad words with images of Dark Skinned People and Light-Skinned People. My data results suggested that I had no automatic preference for Dark Skinned People and Light-Skinned People.
Sexuality
I did take an implicit test on sexuality. In this test, I was supposed to categorize Good and Bad words with Straight people and Gay people. My result data was an automatic preference for straight people over gay people.
References
Adelman, L. (2003). Race: The power of an illusion . California Newsreel: USA .
Higginbotham, F. M. (2015). Ghosts of Jim Crow: Ending racism in post-racial America . New York: NYU Press.
Jee-Lyn García, J., & Sharif, M. Z. (2015). Black lives matter: a commentary on racism and public health. American journal of public health , 105 (8), e27-e30.
McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury Publishing Company.
O’Neill, J. (2013). Which Came First, Slavery or Racism? New York: NYU Press.
Turner, S. E., & Nilsen, S. (Eds.). (2014). The colorblind screen: Television in post-racial America . New York: NYU Press.
