how race is socially constructed

Introduction
Although genetics certainly do define the physical features and characteristics of individuals, “race” itself is an arbitrary classification, much as geo-political boundaries are. Geopolitical boundaries are “real” in the sense that they can be delineated on a map and often are defined by geological features like mountain ranges or rivers. Yet the “reality” of geographic boundaries is tenuous, and they mainly have ramifications for political relationships and regional power struggles. Much in the same way, race can be based on distinct biological features like skin color or facial features but those physiological traits are only clustered for purposes of labeling and stereotyping, justifying social hierarchies, and political expediency. Race is a category of convenience, one that attempts to link specific biological markers like skin color or facial features with cultural components such as ethnicity. More importantly, the construction of race as a deterministic classification has direct implications for social, political, and economic hierarchies. Race is socially constructed and reinforced via processes like identity politics and stereotyping.
Context Matters
Race is socially constructed in context. For example, the Nazis and other anti-Semitic people view Jews as a “race,” whereas in other contexts Jews would be classified as an ethnic or cultural group but not a race given the tremendous diversity among Jewish people (Weber, 1998). Because context matters when it comes to determining what race a person belongs to, or even whether a race exists, race is not real but socially constructed. Moreover, race is socially constructed arbitrarily, based on the needs of the dominant culture. It is convenient to label Jews as a race in order to stigmatize, scapegoat, and promote genocidal pogroms, in order to establish the dominance of a self-designated “Aryan race.” The same types of contextual variables were at play in the way race was used to designate a category of slaves in the United States, distinct from subordinate classes of whites in the American South.
The concept of race is linked with false empiricism, which gave rise to problems like phrenology and eugenics in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and also the principles of social Darwinism (Dempsey-Jones, 2018). Diverting attention away from cultural variables and instead attributing behaviors, attitudes, and worldviews to race, the dominant culture creates the illusion that race is some biological, scientific reality when it really is not. Race can also be confounded with culture in other ways, such as the designation of people from all over Europe as being “Caucasian,” disregarding the people who are actually from the Caucasus region of the world. There is an almost infinite variation of physical and cultural features that can be considered “white” or “Caucasian,” and therefore none of these things are racial except when people are socialized to believe they are. At one time, “Irish Americans along with Polish and Italians were not considered entirely White,” (Johnson, 2017). Thus, race is also relative; a Polish or Italian would be considered “more white” than a Native American or a person from China.
Likewise, a dominant culture or a misinformed outsider might create a racial category based on their superficial perceptions: blanketing Tamil people with Sikhs or Navajo with Sioux, for example (Weber, 1998). In fact, one of the ways to best prove that race is socially constructed is to examine the experiences of persons who do not fit neatly into pre-defined racial categories. For example, researchers found that Obama’s race was “systematically determined by racial biases of the perceiver, by the political partisanship of the perceiver, and by the temporal proximity of the testing session to an election,” (Hodson, 2016, p. 1). Specifically, Republicans viewed Obama as being “blacker,” which impacted their attitudes towards the candidate during his initial run for office (Hodson, 2016). The existence of liminal categories like mixed-race persons, subcultures, or small tribes that have lived in relative geographic isolation for centuries, also shows how race is more about anthropology, culture, and geography than about biological reality.
For much of American history, the social construction of race even became embedded in law. “You could be black in one state, but when you crossed the state line, you are no longer black,” (Johnson, 2017). Race was constructed and defined differently in each state, often depending on whether it was a slave state or a free state, but also on determining legal access to the privileges afforded only to whites. In some states, being a quarter black meant the person was designated as black but in other states the stipulations would be different (Johnson, 2017). There was no genetic test for determining race; it was just a matter of how the society wanted to manufacture social hierarchies based on visible characteristics. People who were half black but who had light skin could choose to “pass” as white in order to take advantage of power privilege, and opportunity, or choose to identify as black. Racial designations determined access to resources and how one was treated by others and in the law. Race is constructed through geographic, cultural, cognitive, and temporal contextual variables, all of which combine to determine perceptions and judgments.
The Science of Social Construction
Sociologists like W.E.B. DuBois first proposed that race is socially constructed, which in the early twentieth century marked a radical departure from prevailing views about race and biological determinism (Gannon, 2016). However, the social sciences could not offer hard evidence showing that race is socially constructed. Genetic research, however, could. Extending as far back as the 1970s, genetic science has bolstered DuBois’s view that race is socially constructed. Most notably, early genetic science demonstrated “there is far greater genetic diversity within what are commonly construed as races than exists between these groups,” (Hartigan, 2009, p. 165). All human beings trace a common ancestry to sub-Saharan Africa and share almost all of their DNA, which also erases the efficacy of race classifications among human beings (Mortillaro, 2016). Initial results of genetic research helped medical researchers to better understand how environmental factors were far more important causes of disease than genetics (Hartigan, 2009). Biology essentially proves that race is socially constructed.
There has been some, albeit little, backlash against social constructionism. A few genetic researchers proposed typologies known as “clinal classes,” which are akin to race (Morning, 2014, p. 189). Yet as Morning (2014) points out, the designation of the “clinal classes” in the research is “empirically jeopardized by the fact that even our best attempts at objectively recording ‘natural’ human groupings are socially conditioned,” (p. 189). Race is similar to genres in film or music; how one perceives and classifies a film or audio track is based on their own background and exposure to different works in that same category.
As with climate change, the vast majority of scientists uphold the social construction of race with only a small minority claiming otherwise (Hartigan, 2009). Social scientists and hard scientists alike can only agree that race is connected with ancestry, and that ancestry is linked to geography. Tracing human ancestry shows how different groups of people “lived isolated from each other for long periods and have evolved different physical traits,” (Coates, 2013, p. 1). Biological and physiological features, what Omi & Winant (2016) call the “corporeality” of race, sometimes shows where a person came from, but that knowledge has no bearing on any other facet of that person’s life including their intelligence, their personality, or even their social status (p. 1064). Physiological markers do, however, determine a person’s life experiences, how others perceive them and how they perceive themselves.
Consequences of Constructing Race
Constructing race leads to more than just stereotyping. In many cases, the social construction of race leads to violence and systematic oppression, the violation of fundamental human rights. The eugenics programs, Nazi and similar pogroms, and the racialization of slavery in America are the most notable examples of how the social construction of race becomes violent at its most extreme. In fact, the most important consequence of race is power: race is “an incipient political distinction or political technology—that was a practical necessity of rule itself, of settler over native, or of master over slave,” (Omi & Winant, 2016, p. 1064). Because race has visible components, with attendant filial and cultural emblems such as religion, geography, or family line, it eliminates the ambiguities that might otherwise arise when creating or reinforcing power structures. There is also no mobility when power is aligned according to race; once a person has been labeled as being part of one race, that person cannot alter their status unless they can “pass” for another race.
In softer examples, race as a social construction has implications for power and privilege, and for in group/out group status. Race—both self-defined and ascribed by others—will impact everything in lived experience “from the types of jobs we have, the amount of money we make, the kind of friends we make, the places we live, the foods we eat, the schools we go to,” (Lusca, 2008, p. 1). Some of the consequences of constructing race are psychological, linked to identity and self-concept. A bi-racial person may struggle with not belonging to either one of her communities of origin, and thus experience a lack of social contact or support. Often, a person’s self-concept is shaped entirely by how others have reacted to them. From the time a person is born, people use language, gestures, and other forms of communication to indicate membership in a specific social group. The same is true for gender, which is like race, socially constructed (Weber, 1998). Both race and gender are socially constructed in ways that gives existential credence to patriarchal and Eurocentric systems of power that are meted out at almost every level of society. A person is judged by their physical features, and in some cases even their name before they are assessed on the merits of their character or actions.
Acknowledging the Consequences Without Giving Credence to Race
One of the greatest challenges in promoting social justice is to simultaneously acknowledge that race is socially constructed, but without resorting to the myth of “colorblindness,” (Mortillaro, 2016). The myth of colorblindness takes the concept of social construction to an illogical conclusion by denying that the social construction of race has real consequences. In fact, the social construction of race does determine social status. “Race is something that is real in society, and that it shapes the way we see ourselves and others,” (Lusca, 2008, p. 1). Even if race is a myth or an illusion, it still does have real consequences for identity, community, and politics. Colorblindness leads to a denial or dismissal of experiences with discrimination or with regards to personal identity or taking pride in one’s cultural history or ancestry. Therefore, sociologists must continue to discuss race in terms of lived experience and public policy.
Conclusion
Race is only real insofar as it can determine how a person is perceived, how a person self-identifies, or whether a person experiences systematic discrimination. The phenomenological aspects of race are important because it is essential to have a dialogue about how racialization impacts lived experience. However, race is not a biological reality and therefore race does not determine anything other than access to power and privilege in the society.




References
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