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Race: The Power of an Illusion
The constructed notion of race, as reinforced through good science, is also reinforced throughout the first episode of this PBS documentary. In the past, poor and racist science has attempted to classify human individuals according to racial categories and failed miserably. However, good science shows that the very notion of racial separations between individuals of different geographies and cultures is in fact specious, and genetically, under the skin, the human race shares more similarities than it does substantial differences, regardless of the culturally constructed notion of race and cultural attempts to use science to keep the notion of race a crucial part of scientific parlance and interest.
The series also notes that although the different nature of the races may appear different to the eye, and race is something one may assume one is an expert at, simply because one can see and because one experiences the world through the eyes as someone typified...
Rather, the category of race is essentially what we as human beings put into it as cultural beings. This is another reason to see race as a constructed notion, a notion more fraught with the emotional rather than intellectual implications of science.
Even from the point-of-view of the eye, this notion and method of classifying the human race can be unstable and tenuous. For example, individuals whom appear white may identify as African-Americans, because they have been brought up in African-American households and because their parents are dark of skin. Individuals may appear white because they are a part of the legacy of slavery in America, and white owners raped African-American slaves, causing some African-American individuals to have some racial characteristics of…
Race: An Illusion The concept of race has no place in today's globalizing world. In fact, it is a damaging illusion. Not only does the idea of race allow false beliefs to develop, but it allows the concept of "them against us" to develop. In such a reality, race becomes a pride-producing rallying point around which blatant discrimination, injustice, and atrocities spring. The idea of race as a meaningful concept is no
Race: Power of an Illusion This second episode of the PBS series, "The Story we Tell" discusses how race and racism developed in this country. Surprisingly, the series experts believe race has a history, and develops over time, and "that it is constructed by society to further certain political and economic goals" ("Race"). The episode begins with narration that leads into the controversial words of Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that he
Nowhere on earth is a thirteen-pound, six-foot long unit of 'scandal' or 'integrity' to be found, for example. Nor apparently can someone find a benchmark unit of 'race'. The second thread runs through the slides 1887, 1934 and 1997. Jim Crow led to better homes for whites than Blacks even after they fought WWII side by side. What this demonstrates is one clear way we very literally live within the
After all, it was only a few generations ago that the FHA was discriminating against black applicants. Schools are still highly segregated. Race in many ways determines access to social and cultural capital, as well as financial capital. Throughout successive generations, it has been difficult if not downright impossible for the sons and daughters of non-white individuals to achieve social and economic parity with whites. The government could do
Race exists, suggests the social view, even in the biological categorizations of science, out of cultural customs and habits not reality. Race is a powerful illusion in culture, even amongst certain pockets of the culture of the scientific community, but it is just that -- an illusion and a delusion. Question Who has benefited from the belief that we can sort people according to race and that there are natural or
Race Personally, I define race as the different tribes of the earth. In my definition, race has a strong affiliation with color. In terms of color, there are a couple of different races such as Blacks, Whites, Asians (who are more or less yellow), Native Americans (red), and the various hybrids associated with the intermingling of these races. Race was defined in the movie "Race the Power of an Illusion" somewhat