Race - a category of people based on their phenotype (physical characteristics)
Ethnicity - shared cultural heritage, deriving from a common ancestry or homeland.
"It's easy to be white." - A student from the Video "The Power of Illusion; The Difference Between Us.
'Hispanic students drop out rate it 30%, which is 3x more than whites and 2x more then blacks.' - from The Hispanic Dropout Rate, written by Susan Headden.
One thing that this video, this chapter and this passage all have in common is that it points out that race and ethnicity exists in this world because we, as a society, have given it a meaning and definition for hundreds of years.
The video points out the fact that years and years and years ago, we needed some way to "classify" people and group them so that we can tell the 'difference' amongst ourselves. Because it is much harder to do that with genetics, society decided to use our physical characteristics. The scientists of this time, Whites, who of course were the people who made this whole classification up, were formed by their society and used themselves as the 'dominant', 'better', 'right', 'upper', 'pure' classification and every other skin color that was categorized into a race was beneath them, with blacks being at the bottom. What they didn't know in the time that they were making these classifications is that in all scientific truth, there are HARDLY any differences between one human being and the next. Every couple of thousand nucleotides in our gene is different than the next person. In penguins, who almost all look like the next penguin, have 30% more differences than humans and fruit flies, have double the differences than that! But we don't put races to penguins or fruit flies, because "they're all the same".
When there was a group of people found who were 'mixed', both whites and blacks, they were labeled "MONGRELS" and were isolated because they did not want whites to be mixed with blacks at all. It was a disgrace for a white person to have one blood of black blood in them, which of course brought up the "one-drop rule". If you had 'one drop' of black in you than you were categorized as black, not white.
People also try to say that blacks are better in sports than whites are, but whites are better at playing music and instruments and are smarter academically than blacks. There is NO GENEs FOR ANY OF THESE TRAITS!!! One thing that stood out to me was when the video displayed Olympics videos from years ago and showed one Black Track runner who was accepted as being the best but his excuse was that "it was in his blood". There is NO gene for being a good runner. There are NO genes for being a good music player or for being smart or for being pretty or having light skin or dark skin. This is what I don't understand how do people NOT know this? How has this been accepted for so long when there is NO scientific proof that people are 'different' through their genes. Of course we are all going to look different and our skin color will range but because someone has more melanin in their skin giving them a darker color, they are considered less than some one with less melanin and is lighter toned. IN MY OPINION, IF YOU HAVE LESS MELANIN THAN SOME ONE WITH MORE MELANIN, THEN YOU HAVE MORE CHANCES OF DYING OF SKIN CANCER THEN THE OTHER PERSON, SO HOW IS THAT AN ADVANTAGE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?! I just don't get it!
One thing that stood out to me in the video was the test of the mitochondria DNA that is only passed from our mothers that the students had to do. It was very interesting to see that a white student was a 100% match to some one in West Africa and another country in Europe that wasn't white, but he had 3 differences in the DNA of some one from Ireland, which he thought he would be more closely rated too. Of the two black students, they had 12 differences between their DNA but one of the students only had 3 differences between him and another Asian classmate. I think that this was a good example of how we aren't that different at all and how you may be more closely related to some one of a different 'race' than some one of your own 'race'.
In the reading, it pointed out that in 8 years, Hispanics will be considered the lowest minority, pushing blacks 'up' in the racial class system. It talks about how poverty plays a huge role in why kids are dropping out of high school. Some have to work to help their families, or have started their own families at a young age and so they have to work even more. Another problem that Hispanics face is language. Hispanic students who were not born in the US face a problem of language in school because they don't English. if their parents are from another country as well, then they most likely don't know English either, causing a hard time for that student in school. They are made fun of and teased because of their accents and are discouraged.
I think that Race is so stupid. It angers me that people have to be "categorized" and judged based on their skin color. People aren't given equal opportunity's and are turned down from jobs and schools because they aren't at the top of the race classification, when that was man made! It can be unmade! It needs to be. It just makes no sense in my head. When I fill out applications I hate having to answer, 'Are you White[Caucasian]? Black [African American]? Asian? Pacific Islander? Latino/Hispanic? Native American?' -- and then when I check the 'Latino/Hispanic' box I have to then answer, "are you white Latino, black Latino or other?" I always hit OTHER and write in "CARAMEL".
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