United States History textbooks have taught us that blacks were taken from African and enslaved in colonial times, emancipated after the Civil War, segregated from the Reconstruction through WWII, righted in 1964, and are now equal.
But are they? Don't stereotypes, including those of whites, still exist in our country today?
What is race? One flaw in the US education system is that it does not educate children enough on the development of diversity, race and stereotypes with which they are surrounded. It's getting there, but still has a long ways to go. Children are taught that slavery and racism are bad, and that's pretty much it. What many don't know is that race is a social construction, not a biological determinant. For example, while we have the categories of Caucasian, African American, Asian American, Native American and Latin American here, other countries base race upon eye color and hair color.
What is it with our categories, anyway? Don't we live in an overly political correct society? Shouldn't Caucasians technically be titled European Americans? It seems as if we are pretty much just broken up into our mother continents. History and even some modern language has shown us that race in the United States can be broken down into color.
White = European American
Yellow = Asian American
Black = African American
Brown = Latin American or Hispanic American
Red = Native American
Sometimes it is really remarkable to think that skin color has been the cause of so much war over the history of human kind. That and religion, both social constructions, by the way. Still in existence, of course, but biological to a minuscule degree. Many do not know that 99% of human genetics are the same. Skin color and pigmentation simply come from the migration of people farther away from the equator. Why do you think the Irish are so pale? (sorry, lads, I have a bit o' the pale skin m'self). Within that remaining 1% are phenotypes (pieces of our makeup like nose shape, lip shape, and eye shape). Unfortunately, many stereotypes exist today because of the lack of knowledge about race.
So where do we go from here? Do we need reform and further education or are we fine the way we are? What do you think? This blog will serve as a forum for dialogue about race in the United States.
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Matt, this was well written. As an anthro student, we talk about race and the place it has in society. its hard to talk about race in our society today because it links us to so many bad things of the past, and has taken on the persona of taboo. Personally its also not brought up in high schools, because people want to believe that it does not matter and therefore should not be taught....its kinda like evolution: some people recognize its existence and others don't. I'm not saying that race should be given more importance than it needs, but like you said it should still be addressed. I remember Mr. Noyes telling me that Indians are actually caucasian because we just have different skin color but really have the same facial physical features, unlike "orientals" and "blacks". I didnt learn that race was a socially constructed concept until I got to college, and that includes the idea of gender as well. I could keep going on and on about the subject! Thanks for letting me read this :)
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