Seven people in a room: second version

RACISM

Seven people in a room

The concept of the race came about in the nineteenth century in Europe. This is when they incorporated racial superiority, racial inferiority and racial difference into the western culture. At that time, race was viewed as inherited, permanent biological differences. Today race is viewed as a social construction that is influenced by physical characteristics. People are socialized to identify a person's race by; first skin color, then hair, then facial features such as shape of the nose and other physical features like height. People can decide to identify the seven people using these characteristics. Races constitute distinctive divisions of the human species, which can be identified by boundaries between them. Races are fixed unchanging and are homogenous by genes. [footnoteRef:2] [2: Ashley Montagu, "The Genetical Theory of Race, and Anthropological Method," American Ethnography Quasimonthly (2011): URL http:/ / http://www.americanethnography.com/article.php?id=37> (accessed on 25th July 2012).]

Racism is not only about the physical description of, human physical, and about characteristics. Racism takes note of race and makes judgments about ethical or inappropriate behavior, and better or worse attributes. This classification of races ranks superiority and inferiority of human types. Other racists even suggest that interbreeding causes race inferiority. Despite racism having a strong biological foundation, people have false beliefs that reduce race to a determinant of physical behavior, and genetic attributes of race. They treat race uncritically. As an ideology, racism is viewed as a cultural construction or sometimes as power politics. [footnoteRef:3] [3: SEDL, "The socially constructed nature of race, culture, and disability: Concept of race, ethnicity, and culture," Research Exchange Vo 4 (1999): URL http:/ / http://www.ncddr.org/products/researchexchange/v04n01/concepts.html> (accessed on 25th July 2012).]

How people are appropriately treated sometimes come in fore with moral issues. Racism usually involves different treatment of people according to the race. Extrinsic racists have racial essence that has certain morality qualities; they believe that people of different racial categories exhibit different characteristics. [footnoteRef:4] These different characteristics justify their different treatment. Intrinsic racists believe that different races have different moral status and no evidence is enough to prove them wrong or undermine their views. These types of racists often prefer members of their own race over others. This preference is not based on any observable characteristics or any morally relevant fact; it is because they are family members and members of the same race. [4: SA Haslanger, "Racism," Problems of Philosophy (2001): URL http:/ / http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/34900/24-00Fall-2001/NR/rdonlyres/Linguistics-and-Philosophy/24-00Problems-of-PhilosophyFall2001/C1DF59BD-1408-4167-8B6C-5A20A10A6552/0/fa01lec06.pdf> (accessed on 25th July).]

However, the effect of racism has caused negative effects. It has been used by many people as a tool of social division. Racism has been easily identified with ideas of the white like the Nazi association, but it cannot be easily identified by scientists. There are more complex cultural arguments, which are overlooked in favor of basic biological explanations or ability. The variables in racism have been seen as the source of social problems to the inferior. It has also caused hatred among individuals; making them want to exterminate other races because of the difference they have no control. Others feel other races will weaken their purity if they interact with them. Different observations made by different people and scholars show those different aspects of racism are common in all orientations.

A critical analysis of racism makes it easy to answer the question of seven people in a room, and it will difficult at the same time. It can be easier to answer the question by using skin color; this makes two people of different color, one black and one white. It can also be easy if the question can be answered by holding a racist sentiment that blacks are from Africa and whites from America. Different factors can also be considered in answering about the racial question. Using these factors poses imperative questions before attempting to answer about the races in the room. Some questions can involve where the seven people originally originated from, what they perceive about each other, what their cultures are and if they are discriminating against each other. However, the answer given will still be ambiguous.

Culture, habits and customs have always been the determinant of a race and even not the biological makeup. Other societies consider and take certain perceived important physical characteristics and use them to place people in different racial categories. Such classification systems bring little or no difference from one society to the next. Different race and criteria for classification of races vary between different societies. Someone who is considered black in America may be considered as white in Brazil. In Rwanda, all people are black but they divide themselves to two races of Hutsis and Tutsis; hence human is the only one who can determine race in their own perceptions. [footnoteRef:5] [5: 4 "Capitalism and Racism," URL http:/ / http://www.bolshevik.org/1917/no12/no12capitalismandracism.html> (accessed 25th July 2012).]

One can also choose to use social classification and behavior to group races; blacks are perceived to behave in certain ways, to achieve certain levels because they are blacks. Whites are assumed to behave and achieve in other ways because they are whites. This shows that physical difference does not have much significance, and the attributes of social significance that exist are put into consideration.