Race Matters

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Race Matters
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What is the meaning of race?

• What is race
• How many races are there?
• What is the purpose of categorizing people on
  racial lines?
• What does the case of Susie Guillory Phipps
  reveal?

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Classification Exercise

• Put into groups based on characteristics you find
  significant.
• What was your reasoning?

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Most Common Grouping

• Other groupings are possible
• No natural or right grouping
• Schema based on what we notice

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Defining Race
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The Physiology of Race Categories

• Categories based on physical characteristics -
  skin color, - eye and nose shape, - hair
  texture, etc.
• Biological theories of race not supported by
  scientific evidence

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Race as Socially Constructed

• Categories defined and assigned significance by
  the society
• Race categories change over time as a result of
  political struggles

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Quote 1 F. Haney Lopez, sociologist

• Race may be Americas most confounding problem,
  but the confounding problem of race is that few
  people seem to know what race is.

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Quote 2 S.Washburn, anthropologist

• the number of races will depend on the purpose
  of classification. I think we should require
  people who propose a classification of races to
  state in the first place why they wish to divide
  the human species.

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Racial Formation Theory

• Michael Omi and Howard Winant

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Race is

• an ever changing complex of meanings shaped by
  sociopolitical conflict
• not a fixed, concrete, natural attribute
• socially and historically constructed
• shaped by those in power.
• meaningful

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Assigning Meaning to Race

• Black as a racial category, end of 17th century
• White as a racial category, consolidated in
  19th Century
• Multiracial as a racial category, currently
  legitimized

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Social Meaning of Race Affects

• Life chances
• Where you live
• How you are treated
• Access to wealth, education, housing, and other
  valued resources

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Color Noticed or Color Blind Society?

• Census bureau classification scheme
• - problems with- changes in
• Theory of the color-blind society- problems with

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Defining Ethnic

• Each of us has an ethnicity- frequently confused
  with race
• Shared cultural characteristics of a group
• Includes national origin, language, traditions,
  customs, religious beliefs/practices, etc. as
  well as racial category