R.E.A.L. Talk,
High Tech Middle Media Arts,
7th Grade Trailblazer
Before we did this project, I thought that race, was just, race, everyone had a race, and that was that, like a lot of the people in this world right now. But then in this project, we dived deeper, and we learned that “race” was just a concept created by humans. I had never thought about race this way before. It really opened a new perspective to me, and I think differently about race since then. My ethnicity is Chinese, and I connect with it quite a bit, because at home my parents speak Mandarin Chinese to me. Also, we eat mostly Chinese food at home, which is pretty different from Panda Express. Like my 6 word memoir says, “race” is a concept humans created, to treat different people differently, based on looks. Racism is still a problem in our world. We can’t just pretend like it’s not here. We need to treat all races equally, and not believe in stereotypes about different races. Chinese is my ethnicity, and I am proud of it! But in the end, we are all simply human.
Race is just a Social Construct Created by Humans.
Race is not scientifically real. Race is simply a concept humans created to classify “different” humans, based on physical appearance, so people could be treated differently. As Robert Wald Sussman, a professor and physical anthropologist puts in his book, The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea, “It is not a biological reality, however, but a cultural one. Race is not a part of our biology, but it is definitely a part of our culture. Race and racism are deeply ingrained in our history.” So race is not scientifically, or biologically real, it is just something we have woven into our society. Race and racism is taught, children are not born racist. Race is not scientifically proven, people just used it as a way to categorize, and discriminate against, people who look different. Race is a social view, that people are different, and should be treated differently because they look different. Race is a social construct, to make some people feel less, and some people feel superior, all because of outer appearance.
Sussman, Robert Wald. “Why Are We Divided by Race When There Is No Such Thing?” Newsweek. 05 Mar. 2016. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.
