United Kingdom and Race

Race as Social Construct The author of this report has been asked to offer a brief essay on whether race is a social construct or not. Some people associated race with biology. Others assert that there is a marked difference between race and ethnicity and that the two should not be confused. Others still assert that there are certainly sociological and psychological aspects to race and that they cannot be ignored.

This report shall explore all of those at a basic level and try to come to answers about all of the above. While there is certainly a social aspect to race, for just anyone to claim that they are a certain race just does not compute in certain situations. If there are two people that drive home the point that race is at least not entirely a social construct, they would be Shaun King and Rachael Dolezal.

The former is a huge entity within the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and the latter was a former leader within a regional part of the NAACP. The issue that has arisen for many in looking at the parentage and youth pictures of the two men is that they very much look to be white people despite what they portend to be about and represent as adult. Further, there are many people that suggest that race and ethnicity are not the same thing and should not be conflated.

For example, there are obviously black people in the United States and the ancestry that they commonly (but do not always) share is something that must be considered. However, that is more a matter of ethnicity rather than race in the estimation of many. For example, there are many people that are just now immigrating from Africa rather than being in the United States or other countries already due to the slave trade of prior centuries.

Beyond that, there are plenty of black people in countries like the United Kingdom and Haiti, just to name two, and those people have an entirely different culture and ancestral background than the black people that are commonly found in the United States. There is confusion running rampant even in the United States. The confusion seems to be match the confusion that is seen when it comes to what the word "gender" does and does not mean in an LGBT context.

However, to suggest that there is not a social element to race, especially in the United States, would be flatly untrue. To be sure, there is plenty of banter about who is dark-skinned versus who is light-skinned. There are plenty of people who lodge in their bias and bigotry when they see someone of color. There is certainly a social element to what happens when it comes to race in the United State and it comes from all angles and from all races.

Some of those social forces and ideas are positive while others are extremely nasty and pernicious. The national anthem protests that are emanating in the NBA and NFL are just one manifestation of all of that. However, it has to be recognized that a great many of the non-white people in the United States are here because of slavery and other bad things from the history of the United State. Even so, there are plenty of Anglo-Saxon people (e.g.

Irish) that were treated rather poorly in the past as well. If there is a main point to take away from all of this, it would be that the plight and experience of many racial minorities is beyond debate and part of the public historical record. However, there is very much a social element and structure to what is said and done when it comes to the same and it is.