The Social and Political Constructions of Race

Race is that little box you check when filling out forms. It doesn't have anything to do with ethnic identity, cultural background, or personal beliefs or values. It has nothing to do with the kind of person you are or where you come from, and yet it plays an enormous part in your future, your abilities, and your perception of the world.

Why?

Because we made it that way.

At the Natural History Museum's "Race" exhibit

Race is a social construction. It's totally invented, having no groundings in biology or any other science. Despite this, we have given it value and meaning; we have given some people privilege and devalued and discriminated against others with it. 

We have made it a huge part of our identity, and it is a deciding factor in so many decisions we make and  decisions made for us. 

You know what's funny? Those little race "boxes" aren't even that well defined--what makes a certain person black and a certain person white?  Of course, if someone were to hop on a plane in Norway and hop off again in the Caribbean, there would be noticeable differences in skin tone and features.

What if you walked it? There would never be a certain, imaginary line where people  suddenly "looked different." People tend to look like the people that live where they do, and that's what you would notice. It is a slow transformation, a spectrum, all the way from Norway to the Caribbean, and the changes are so slight, you wouldn't even notice. 

Race is a political construction.

At a time in our nation's history, being defined as black or white varied state to state. In some states, if you were one-eighth black, you were racially black. In other states it was one-quarter or one-sixteenth. These sort of definitions effectively put in place a sort of glass ceiling, a caste system, a world of poverty and discrimination. These laws effectively kept certain people from achieving autonomy, freedom, and basic rights, and kept a different group of people in the ruling class, in control of money, land, education, and wealth.

At the Natural History Museum's "Race" exhibit

Depending on your race, you either think about it constantly or not at all. For people who have been discriminated against or mistreated based on their race, it is something in the forefront of their minds. Others never think about their race, don't identify anything with their particular race--because they have never had to. What they don't see, however, is what a great privilege that is, and what other great privileges they have been given for having this complexion. 

For people of races that have been discriminated against, we see evidence in this socially, economically, and politically to this day. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. People with darker skin are more likely to be in prison, more likely to be in poverty, and more likely to be uneducated and unqualified for employment. Is it because they are black? Yes, but in a twisted sense. It is because of the history and definition of race created so long ago, and how that has spilled over to now. If one specific racial group is given access to certain rights and another denied access, which one is going to succeed? Which one is going to suffer and ultimately find other methods for survival? We created race, and race has created all of these problems and divides. 

Race is incredibly valuable and necessary in our culture. When we meet new people, we wonder "what are they?" if they look "mixed" or "ethnically unusual," and we feel it alright to ask them these questions, and further to compartmentalize them. People who cannot easily define their race have a harder time fitting in places. Certain stereotypes and generalizations have been created based on racial divides. We live in a country, where people feel more comfortable hanging out with people who look like them, where a box on an employment application has dictated so much of our culture and individual success and value. 

If this is interesting to you, check out the National Museum of Natural History's new exhibit, "Race." It's running all summer, and chalk-full of information about the social and political origins of race, as well as accounts of people who have dealt with race in interesting ways. It gives you an opportunity to really think about what divides us--if anything.

--Megan