Melissa Vargas
October 3, 2016
We live in a society
where race is an important factor of identification for ourselves as well as
how we identify others. Everybody learns some combination, some
version, of the rules of racial classification, and of their own racial identity,
often without obvious teaching or conscious inculcation. Race becomes 'common
sense' - a way of comprehending, explaining, and acting in the world (Omi &
Winant 1994).
But what does race mean?
Many people can say that race has to do with genetics but that simply isn’t
true. In the film “Race: The Power of an Illusion”, a group of students from
different races conduct an experiment in which they examine their mitochondrial
DNA. Their expectations were that their genes would be similar to the people of
the same race as them, and most different from the people of a much different
race. In the results, however, it was found that even those of the same race
had fewer similarities than two people of different races. Pilar Ossorio states
that there is as much or more diversity and genetic difference within any
racial group as there is between people of different racial groups. This
experiment helped prove that race is not a biological structure, rather a
societal one.
In the founding of
America, the opposite theory was implemented in society. Omi and
Winant argue that the concept of race developed gradually and was created to
justify and explain inequality that is characteristic of European colonization.
The expropriation of property, the denial of political rights, the introduction
of slavery and
other forms of coercive labor, well as outright extermination, all presupposed
a worldview which distinguished European – children of God, human beings, etc.
– from "others"
Scientists developed
systems to classify human beings in order to justify racial inequalities
(Golash-Boza, 2014). These systems were biased and favored the white race,
justifying their dominance. Some of the systems that were used were craniometry,
a study used to prove that Europeans had larger brains than other races. This
theory was later disproven after unconscious bias was found in the study (Gould
1996). These studies favoring the superiority of whites contributed
to the inequalities of race in America through a variety of laws such as the
1924 Racial Integrity Act and the Jim Crow Laws of the 1960s. The idea that
whites were “better” than others created systematic racism that still exists to
this day. Systematic racism manifests itself in many different areas of society
such as housing opportunities, jobs, and education.
The influx of immigrants
from all over the world into America has created a greater complexity of how
race is perceived in America. Where do Asians, Middle Eastern, and Latinos fit
in society? As a Latina, I have always had trouble identifying myself
racially. Hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race, because we are a mixture of
different races. For example, my ethnic group is called Mestizo, which are
people mixed of white European and indigenous people. It can be difficult when
asked for my race in documentation because I find that I don’t fit into the
standard boxes of White, Black, Asian/Pacific Islander. Because of the color of
my skin, I can sometimes pass as white, therefore some of my experiences in
America have been different than those of darker skin Latinos. However, I still
find that I completely identify with Latinos because of the culture in which I
was raised. I am very proud of being Colombian, and I am proud of being
racially mixed. I would like to understand more of my background, though, since
European colonization wiped out a lot of my ancestral roots.
Los
cuadros del mestizaje del Virrey Amat
Works Cited
- Omi, Michael; Winant, Howard (1986), Racial Formation in the United Statesfrom the 1960s to the 1990s, 2nd ed. New York. Routledge.
- Golash-Boza, Tanya. 2014, Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach, 23-24.Oxford University Press.
- Gould, Stephen Jay. 1996. The Mismeasure of Man, 106. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
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