Assignment 11: The Social Construction of Race

Many people perceive race to be an inherent and permanent biological characteristic. But in fact, this is not true. Due to our tendency as human beings to categorize, generalize and stereotype everything in our world, we have socially constructed race overtime. Although, biologically, it has been established that there are no distinct races among humans, the outward appearance of people still plays an important social role in the manner in which different people relate to each other. 

Before reading this chapter, I had only briefly talked about race as a social construction in a couple other classes, but I had never been given examples of how race is perceived differently in different places. The book painted a picture of how what we understand as race in our society is not the same that is understood as race in another. For example, I thought it was interesting that Brazilian's are able to change to different racial categories through educational and economic achievements.Therefore, people with darker skin who are educated and financially successful might be considered "white" and lighter skinned people who are poor or uneducated can be considered a "negro". Also, in Ireland and England anybody who is not white is considered black. These ways of categorizing races are very different from the way we categorize race in the U.S.  According to our 2010 census, our racial categories include; White, Black, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean Vietnamese, Native Hawaiian, Guamanian, Chamorro (Indigenous peoples of Guam), or Samoan (Newman 362). This is drastically different from the census of 1790 when the classifications were simply, Free White Males, Free White Females, All Other Free Persons, and Slaves (Newman 363). The difference between the two censuses illustrates how our understanding of race can change overtime as well.  

These arbitrary rules that we have made up over time have become the realities that shape the way people are perceived and valued. These rules are the base lines for prejudice and inequality which can serve as justification for people to discriminate, dominate, and commit violent hate crimes against others. Racism has been the foundation for some of the most appalling genocides and hate crimes all over the world. These rules and created realities were used to validate slavery in the U.S. for hundreds of years and were also the fuel behind the United State's attempt to wipe out the Native American ethnicity through assimilation and interbreeding. 

While reading this chapter, I immediately thought of the mass genocide in Rwanda between the Hutus and the Tutsis. The conflict between the two groups has been going on for much of the 20th century. The Tutsis for many years were a thriving aristocracy who had a monarchy dating back to the 15th century. In the 1960's with the arrival of Belgian colonizers, the Tutsis were overthrown by the less wealthy Hutus. In 1972 between 80,000 and 200,000 Hutus were killed by the Tutsi army in Burundi. The Belgians also introduced the two groups to classified ID cards, which worked to deepen a rigid racial concept of group identity where it had not previously existed. This led up to the assassination of the the Hutu president of Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana in 1994, sparking the well-organized extermination of Tutsis by Hutu militias. An approximated 500,000-1,000,000 people were murdered in the span of 100 days. This genocide had nothing to do with language or religion. Both Hutus and Tutsis speak the same Bantu tongues as well as French, and generally practice Christianity. Moreover, geneticists have been unable to find marked ethnic differences between the Hutu and the Tutsi, besides the fact that Tutsi are said to be taller. The racial stereotypes of the two groups are that Hutu people are dark-skinned, short and thick-set with a big head, and have wide noses and enormous lips, while the Tutsis are fair, very tall, thin, and have fine features: a high brow, thin nose and fine lips. It is also said by German rulers that Tutsis are well turned-out people in relation to Hutus, who are shy and timid. I found this to be a telling example of how differences are created among people and it can be any random thing. 

In the example above, two groups of people who share language, religion, skin color, and land were still able to find differences in physical characteristics and social behaviors and categorize them as superior and inferior. These differences served as rigid dividers when hatred developed between the two, and meant the difference between life and death. The Rwandan Genocide is just one example of how racism is socially constructed by human beings. Prejudice and discrimination based on race is still a huge problem today all over the world. Many countries, including the U.S. have made laws against the discrimination of others, but racism is still a very prevalent issue today on a global level.

Works Cited:

Newman, David (2012). Sociology:Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life: 9th Edition. SAGE Publications.

http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/difference-between-hutu-and-tutsi/

http://www.monitor.upeace.org/archive.cfm?id_article=707

http://worldnews.about.com/od/africa/f/tutsihutu.htm