Writing Assignment

Go to the PBS online companion to the documentary, Race: The Power of an Illusion:

 http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm

2.  Read and complete a module you did not select for your discussion: Sorting People, Race Timeline, Human Diversity, Me, My Race and I or Where Race Lives. 

3.  Respond to the following questions: 

 a.  What do we mean when we say that race is “socially constructed?” 

b.  What did you find particularly interesting and/or disturbing in the information you reviewed? 

c.  How did this information increase your diversity consciousness? 

d.  How will you use this increased consciousness?

4. Be sure and use in-text citations and references from the course materials, websites and/or other resource materials to support your response.  

We are often made to believe that we are not living in a post-racial society with valuable historical links. We sometimes often stay away from the topic because we get very sensitive when it is brought up or even discussed. We often struggle how to distinguish European Americans from African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinas and Latinos, Native Americans and other groups. Whenever race comes up, an interesting question appears not to be discussed, “how race has been socially constructed?”

“Race always has matters in the United States as both social and individual. The social construction of race has been developed within various legal, economic, political, cultural and sociopolitical contexts, and may be the effect, more rather than the cause of the main race-related issues that our society faces today.” (Facts within 6) We see these cases from the early 1700s and 1800s, up to the late 1900’s, who was Black, or White was a matter of state laws. You could be black in one state, but when you crossed the state line, you are no longer black. Some states said if you look or even act Black, you’re Black. Some states said if you have one-quarter of Black blood running through your veins, you’re Black. Some states declared if you have one-drop of Black blood you are solely Black.

The information that I have found, is disturbing in some ways, because race is socially constructed. It doesn’t matter in a way if you were born in the United States or not. We have as a society turned this into such a black and white issue, that it doesn’t need to be. White cops shoot black men, usually is not a racial issue. It statistical facts that say which group of people who are more highly to commit crime, and be the primary aggressor.