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Shirley Paxtor

Professor Teri Potter

Anthropology 1020

12 October 2019

The Concept of Race

Introduction:

This paper will go over how biology, race, and social constructs form a society. The

confusion that ethnicity can get when people are not educated about their cultural background.

Ethnicity is an example of a social construct of where culture determines which ethnic group a

person is a part of. What people can do to make changes in being more anti-racism to avoid cases

like George Floyd, he was racially profiled and police officers were on this chest that leads to his

death. His death was important to point out that as a society we have not moved on from racism.

People need to be aware that racism is a social construct. Meaning that the color of your skin

doesn’t make a person more than or less than any other person. The paper will go over what

people can do to make changes to be more inclusive to indigenous and black people.

Biological Race:

Biology is based on how people adapt to the environment, but everyone is classified as

Homo Sapiens (Maskovsy, 2017). In the biological perspective, skin color is used depending on

the weather altitude and location (Von Feigenblatt, 2015). Biology is determined based on skin

color, height, and weight change to fit the environment that is needed to survive in the location

that the person currently resigned (Boaduo, 2014). If someone is living on a tropical island, they

would be taller and leaner to be able to reach for food and not be hot in the heat. In areas that

have mountains or more snowy environments, people are shorter and chubbier to keep the heat in
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during the winter and be able to hide from animals from the wild (Boaduo, 2014). Due to the

location where these people are, and their physical features Europeans would use this

information to create categories of race that became the norms with every colonized country to

put people into boxes. By doing so they would be view superior towards other cultures and it has

effects on other countries’ cultures and suppressed what makes them unique.

Social Construct:

Most anthropologists would agree that race is a social construct. A social construct is

something that exists from the result of human interactions, it’s not something that can be seen in

the eyes (Maskovsy, 2017). The word race is created by a dominant group of people. The

concept of classifying people into groups that come from the colonization era when Columbus

would invade the Paria Peninsula which is known as Venezuela and claim it as Spain (Onion,

etc. 2010). When Europeans would start putting people in the category. They would look at the

features of their skin, face, and body to determine where they would fit (Von Feigenblatt, 2015).

The system used to classify people into groups was Eurocentric and ethnocentric (Boaduo,

2014). Ethnocentrism is judging other cultures according to their own cultural customs and

standards. Eurocentric Europeans use their culture or history to tell the world. Both terms are

main items as to why social construct was invented. The Europeans were the ones who would

make the system to put people into boxes in. They would use the category system to favor

themselves and to put stereotypes to make black people feel inferior due to them not fitting into

the Eurocentric system (Boaduo, 2014). By putting a label on people and having ethnocentrism

within the classification of humans leads to dehumanization towards mankind. By using their

own norms as a yardstick to compare to other cultures that are different from themselves can lead

to people feeling inferior. White people can feel superior and can do things that are unethical like
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experimenting on minorities for drug tests or new medicines (Nittle, 2020). The shift into power

will take place in society for example allowing slavery to be acceptable and experiments on

minorities like Germany did to the Jewish people during World War I and II.

Ethnicity:

Ethnicity has been used to describe someone’s culture. The term has been coined to

separate people from their racial identity to make it easier for others to classify them into a box

(Boaduo, 2014). Italians moved from Italy to the United States of America to be known as

Romance to have a separate identity from the Americans (Boaduo, 2014). In Central American,

Latinx or Hispanic is used to describe a group of people who were colonized by the Spaniards

with different connotations depending on the definition of being Latinx or Hispanic (Onion, etc.

2010). Latinx are people from Latin America and Hispanic is used to describe people from Spain

(Onion, etc. 2010). As time moves on the definition is used to describe a similar group (Onion,

etc. 2010). Being Latinx or Hispanic can mean your race can be different from others who have

the same ethnicity. Someone can be white and be Latinx or a person can be black and be

identified as white. Scientific racism has been linked to the classification of people and still

influences how others view black people in a negative light. In biology, there are no differences

between races. There is confusion with how people can view where they fit into race and

ethnicity. Due to the lack of information about the people’s history of origin, they would get

confused and give out wrong information. If they have large populations and most white-passing

minorities will continue to hold their white people’s power in society. It’s an example of ethical

cleansing. Ethnic cleansing is when a group of people is trying to get rid of people’s ethnic

identity and culture.

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Outcomes of not teaching anti-racism:

Being anti-racist is going against racism. Black people are the ones being the most

disadvantaged towards people not teaching their children and their community about being anti-

racist. The social divide between black people and the white would be so great that riots and

wars will be fought until no one is left standing (Maskovsy, 2017). Due to recent events towards

black lives matter, it has shown how important it is to address racism because it doesn’t affect

one community it affects everyone outside of the area. If society supports unethical experiments

minorities continue to be oppressed because having this outdated system has cost millions of

people’s lives and freedom. By not having anti-racist policies in place genocide can happen. If

indigenous or black people refused to give up their land or/and culture identity the government

can go against the group by committing Genocide (Dua & Lawrence, 2005). Genocide is the

mass homicide of people in ethnic or national groups (Dua & Lawrence, 2005). It happens in

many places around the world in the USA, Latin America, and Germany. It affects the number of

people being alive and how long people’s ancestry is. Many people who are not white would not

know a lot of their missing ancestry. There would be missing history from their schools because

the government doesn’t want people to know about how messed the country was towards

indigenous and black people. Like how the USA put Japanese people in contraction camps

during World War 2. People would try to find ways to be superior to others to the point they

forget humanity that not only degrades black and ingenious people but themselves.

How can we change?

What can we do to break away from the Eurocentric label? We can start learning about

our history that is forgotten over time due to white people wanting to not feel bad about the

horrible history that they created for many centuries. We can study through the internet or take
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classes over controversial subjects like African studies, Native American, Asian American, Latin

American or any course teaching the oppressed group point of view instead of the usually

eurocentricEurocentric lessons. What makes these courses controversial is the focus on

minorities instead of what white people want you to learn. Going to the local library and learning

about different cultures can help better understand misconceptions that are taught in school.

Without being aware of our own biases we can continue to unconsciously oppress minorities

without taking care of the roots of the problems.

Start supporting Black people and appreciating their contributions to society. The

Europeans and people with similar features have taken advantage of the eurocentricEurocentric

system placed by the Europeans. Black people need to feel safe in a society that doesn’t view

them as seriously as they should. The leaching, police brutality, and countless Black people

going to jail for minor crimes for many years needs to stop. Enforcing policies that benefit Black

people from getting human rights.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, being educated on the history of indigenous and Black people’s suffering

to move past prejudice and create an inclusive environment for everyone. It’s important to

question the system that we are currently in and find ways in the community to be an advocate

for change towards racial inequalities. Our society will move forward once we break down

barriers for others to bring in ideas into their environment to make a better society. If we don’t

try to appreciate what our indigenous and Black people have done for us we will continue to be

divided until we can’t anymore.

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Works Cited

Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan, and Matt Mullen. History. 21 July 2010. Webpage. 23 June

2020.

Boaduo, Nana Adu-Pipim. “Undeniable Complacency of Western World Anthropology Scholars

Ignorance in Acknowledging the Equality of Human Races: Revisiting AnténorFirmin in

the New Millennium.” Journal of Pan African Studies, vol. 7, no. 2, Aug. 2014, pp. 34–

44. EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=asn&AN=98931398&site=eds-live.

Lawrence, Bonita, and Enakshi Dua. "Decolonizing Antiracism." Social Justice (2005).

Document.

Maskovsky, Jeff. “Reclaiming the Streets Black Urban Insurgency and Antisocial Security in

Twenty-First-Century Philadelphia.” Focaal, no. 79, Dec. 2017, pp. 39–53. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.3167/fcl.2017.790104.

Nittle, Nadra Kareem. "How Racism in Health Care Has Affected Minorities Over the Years."

ThoughtCo, Feb. 11, 2020, thoughtco.com/racism-in-healthcare-over-the-years-2834632.

von Feigenblatt, Otto F. “The Fallacy of Race: A Post-Racial America.” Journal of Alternative

Perspectives in the Social Sciences, vol. 7, no. 1, July 2015, pp. 39–53. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=108783665&site=eds-live.

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