Sociology: A Short Social Critique On the Judgment of 'Race'

Couple from 'gem man' magazine article

   Many of us were taught in school about the legacies of influential historical figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. & Malcolm X. Why are these people historically significant? Because they revolutionized the way our society thought about race, and they were prominent African-American civil rights activists. However, our society is far from having eliminated the social construct of race.

What do I mean by the "social construct" of race?

What the "social construction" of race really means

  For starters, race is a rather ambiguous and imprecise term. For example, there is no clear cut distinction that people can make where someone stops being 'black' and is then considered 'white.' If I had a litmus test with a hundred shades of color and asked a hundred people to identify where black stops being black and it becomes white, the results will not be consistent. There will not be a clear shift in color that everyone will agree is when you become white, or vice versa. 

  Back when the slaves were newly freed, African-Americans faced 'Jim Crow' laws which were laws that were explicitly made for the purpose of continuing racial segregation in the South. These laws made it difficult for the newly freed slaves to do things that were supposed to be guaranteed to them as a right, such as voting. But in this age, it became apparent that there was trouble in the predominant understanding of race. Children were being born that were of African-American and European-American mix, which meant that they had to be 'assigned' to either being regarded as black or white. This is when the majority group began to develop the 'one-drop rule' which stated that simply one drop of 'non-white' blood meant you were non-white. And for some time, this idea prevailed. However, it has one serious flaw: and that is that blood is not specific to any race, blood is blood (to put this into perspective: it would make more sense to discriminate based on blood type.)

From 'can black people get lice' website

Fun fact: did you know that in South Africa during apartheid a "comb test" was administered to determine race? Someone would stick a comb in the person's hair who was in question and if the comb fell out easily, they were considered white. But on the contrary, if it didn't you 'failed', you were considered black. With hair like the picture above, I think he would've failed.

   In biology, taxonomy is the science of defining groups of organisms based on their shared characteristics and giving names to said groups. The science of taxonomy was invented by Carlos Linnaeus (a Swedish botanist), and during the 1750s, in his optimistic endeavor to scientifically categorize everything, he did not even accept the race hypothesis. 

Hold up

   So where did "race" come from then? That's a good question that often keeps people hung up. There is a scientific answer to that question, but you may not accept it depending on your worldview. According to the religious answer, the Bible seems to suggest that all nations (i.e. races) descended from one man and one woman who is famously known as Adam & Eve. On the other hand, according to the widely accepted theory of evolution, Darwin would have argued that as groups of human beings spread all around the world, they develop
ed adaptations to diverse climates that resulted in physical difference such as complexion, skin color and even shapes. 

  Differences in culture emerged essentially for the same reason differences in physical attributes emerged. Consequently, this is precisely the reason why different races have different cultures. Chances are, if I lived on the other side of the world from you and we never meet, we would develop a much different culture from one another over several generations. But in the 1900s, post-slavery in the U.S., to find a convincing way to explain our racial differences, culture was used as another justification for seeing biological differences between races. Inferior races were seen as having inferior cultures, and 'true' races were seen as having the superior culture. And African-Americans were seen as having the 'inferior culture.' (If you are still having trouble breaking away from the belief that those of European descent are biologically superior, please read "Gun, Germs & Steel" by Jared Diamond.)

From 'adastra comix' website

Fun fact: Sociologists practice 'cultural relativism' when studying other cultures. This concept states that when studying other cultures, the beliefs and actions of those within that culture can only be judged through their own culture. In other words, sociologists try their best not to judge other's cultures because they were raised in a different culture than their's.

How cultural relativism can save you from going to prison (don't actually try this.) Courtesy of cartoon stock

Why African-Americans suffer from higher rates of diabetes

   One of the most common arguments for people with prejudiced attitudes to use is to point to the fact that African-Americans have higher rates of diabetes. However, this argument has been proven by science to be untrue as once again, there has been no difference found in the biological makeup between 'whites' and 'blacks.' Furthermore, differences in diabetes rates are only the lingering consequences of a history of racial constructions and a history of social stratification based on that fact. Therefore, the explanation is that any kind of seeming biological differences between people have only arised due to social categorization over time. Similarly, this is precisely the reason why there is the persistent 'ghetto' attribution to African-Americans. A history of social stratification based on race has had detrimental effects on the economic and educational opportunities of many African-American families and have created collections of poor neighborhoods and generational cycles of poverty.

Fun fact: have you ever been so pressured into doing well at something that you didn't think you'd do well, but  when it came time you did do really well? Or has people's lack of confidence in you ever hurt your own confidence in yourself? labeling theory in sociology may help explain this. Labeling theory states that performance or self-identity of individuals may be influenced or even determined by the terms used to describe or classify them by others. This theory plays in right along with stereotyping and why it can be so hurtful to the targets of stereotypes. It can also explain how we may make stereotypes become more true simply by insisting their accuracy.

Why biologists are fed up with race

   In a scientific article published in the 'Science' magazine website in February of this year, 4 prominent scientific scholars wrote about the uselessness of the reference to race in biological studies. They argued that since biology can not establish a meaningful definition to race, they need to get rid of the reference to it in science because it harms the honest biology research. Biologists alike have come out in support of the idea, and social scientists are finally getting recognition for what they've been saying all along.

Reflection

   There is still much more to say about the social construction of race, but I believe anyone going in would have come out by now with some added value to their understanding of race.

   Now, I invite you to look at something I found on YouTube. This comment came from an individual who's identity will be protected, but whom I have no association with. Let's take a look:

... As a white nationalist I come from a country whose intellectuals have completly destroyed my race my future and my identity. Fuck globalism, and interracial societies...

With the fresh look at race, I'll let the reader decide why that statement is quite ironic.

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SOURCES:

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6273/564

https://www.boundless.com/sociology/textbooks/boundless-sociology-textbook/deviance-social-control-and-crime-7/the-symbolic-interactionalist-perspective-on-deviance-64/labeling-theory-383-8117/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-construct-scientists-argue/

http://www.biologyreference.com/Ta-Va/Taxonomy-History-of.html

https://anthropology.net/2008/10/01/race-as-a-social-construct/