What is Race?

What is Race?

What is race? This is a very complicated question for most people. Before learning about race I would say that race had to do with the physical appearance of different people, as most people would say; but now I´m not too sure about what race is. According to Ian F. Haney Lopez, who wrote the article titled “What is Race?”, race is a “socially constructed concept” (Lopez 1994). Most people would say that race has to do with the biological genes of the human DNA, but they would be mistaken. People use race as an excuse to classify different types of people into different social categories. Lopez specifically defines race as “a vast group of people loosely bound together by historically contingent, socially significant elements of their morphology and/or ancestry” which illustrates that race is nothing to do with genes, but instead it was created to socially categorize people with different physical features.

What would people say if I would ask them “What is your race?” I think they wouldn’t be sure what to answer me because there are so many different categories of race that one can be part of many different categories. I´m not sure what race I belong to because I have many little traits of various races. I don’t believe a person can be from just one racial category because everybody has some similar features to other people that belong to different racial groups. The truth about race is that is only skin deep because in the inside we are all the same; no physical feature should be the reason of unfair treatment.

For the people that need to classify people with different facial characteristics, so they can feel superior I only have one thing to say to you; you have no leg to stand on with your argument. According to the PBS documentary I recently watched, a person from Asian descent has a greater chance to have a similar DNA sequence as a person from African descent (PBS). This means that even if two people look nothing alike, they can still have a similar to even an exact DNA sequence. This disproves any idea that associates race with biological traits.

In conclusion, race is just an excuse to classify different types of people into different social categories to, so a specific racial category could be dominant over the others. Humans are the most alike species in the entire world, so it is ignorant to believe that a certain racial group is better or worse than another. It doesn’t matter if you are Black, White, Asian, Latino, etc. we are all the same in the inside. We are all equal.

Work Cited

Ian F. Haney Lopez, The Social Construction of Race: Some Observations on Illusion, Fabrication, and Choice, 29 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 1-62, 6-7, 11-17 (Winter, 1994)

Unknown, . Race. N.d. Photograph. n.p. Web. 17 Mar 2014. <http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/dallasweekly.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/a/11/a11de424-08dd-11e2-8b05-0019bb30f31a/5064afe0ca066.image.jpg>.

Unknown, . "What is Race." PBS.org. N.p.. Web. 17 Mar 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/race/001_WhatIsRace/001_00-home.htm>.