I find it very interesting how in my Sociology
class, we have recently been talking about race and how it’s a socially
constructed idea based upon physical differences between humans referring
mostly to skin color.
I thought that Ian F. Haney Lopez’s essay called The Social Construction of Race to be
rather intriguing because he addresses how race is a “Confounding Problem” and
says, “Human fate still rides upon ancestry and appearance. The characteristics
of our hair, complexion, and facial features still influence whether we are figuratively
free or enslaved” (pg. 965). From the moment we are born, people treat us the
way they are socially constructed to treat us. The same goes for gender. The
nurses may ‘ooh’ and ‘ah’ in a softer way toward a newborn baby girl and they
may talk in a louder way, using their chest voice toward a newborn baby boy. “Race
dominates our personal lives,” Lopez goes on to say, “It manifests itself in
our speech, dance, neighbors, and friends—‘our very ways of talking, walking,
eating, and dreaming are ineluctably shaped by notions of race’,” (pg. 965)
meaning that we are mentally and socially trained to think of certain
connotations among other races, causing us, as human beings to treat other
people of a certain race differently than others.
I recently watched “The Office” episode Diversity Day (Season 1, Episode 2)
where Michael Scott, the manager had his office workers play a game where they
stuck an index card to their forward which had a certain racial group or ethnic
group written on the card but they weren’t allowed to look at what was written
on theirs’. Then he had them mingle with each other and have everyone in the
office treat each person like they would with what was written on the card.
Though I personally would not encourage anyone to take part in such an
activity, I find it rather interesting how looking at the activity as a whole,
it helped me to see how much stereotyping affects our interactions with one
another and how well we perform in the world on a day-to-day basis.
Lopez goes on to say that, “Race determines our
economic prospects. The race-conscious market screens and selects us for manual
jobs and professional careers, red-lines financing for real estate, green-lines
our access to insurance, and even raises the price of that car we need to buy”
(pg. 965). During my sociology class, our professor showed us several charts on
the amount of earnings between Caucasians and African Americans. Caucasians had
much higher income compared to that of African Americans. He also showed us a
very interesting video of the odds of someone being able to make it to the top
of the social class system based upon their race, social class and also
including contributing factors such as whether or not the person’s parents were
married or if they had their parents in their lives at all. You can watch the
video here:
It’s still a prevalent issue today and who knows if
it will ever become resolved. Lopez’s research and findings seem to bring a
great perspective on the issues at hand that can certainly be seen on a daily
basis.
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