In this post I will answer a few questions such as:
When did I first recognize the concept of race and ethnicity?
What did I learn from it?
Did I ever get a sense that the races and ethnicities were different or treated differently in our society, specifically in the media.
Lastly, I defend the need for racial categorizations in our society. – Hope you enjoy!
When did you first recognize the concept of race and ethnicity?
I believe that the first time I thought about the concept of race and ethnicity outside of just reading it in a school textbook would be in early high school. The event that caused me to think of race and ethnicity was when an African-American student and his family moved into the area and he joined our school. The reason this caused me to think about these concepts was not only because of how he was treated by other people in the school, but also because of the conversations I had with him. Sadly, he was not treated well by many students in the school. Our high school consisted 7th grade through 12th grade in the same building. This enabled a lot of bullying to occur, especially toward this student, through stereotypes and slurs being said to him. In addition to how he was treated by fellow students, conversations I had with him about general interests like music played a role in my understanding. His music taste was different than mine, however, we both loved baseball. We grew very close in the years that followed, but tragically his life was cut short due to a car accident.
What did you learn?
I learned many things through my friendship, including but not limited to, challenges other people can face just for being “different” from the majority, respect for people and their differences, and an understanding of privilege. A primary challenge that student dealt with was blatant racism. Sadly, he had to deal with people targeting him due to the color of his skin. He did not do anything to anyone yet was mistreated and disrespected for being a different race.
My parents always taught me to do the right thing and treat people with respect and kindness, however, this experience helped put those values into action. We were able to be very close friends, mostly through shared interests of sports, video games, and tv programming, I didn’t care about our differences.
The concept of privilege was something else I learned about from our friendship. I personally felt more privileged than him, in part because I was white in a very rural Caucasian area, but also because I felt I had a more stable home life than he did. I was raised in a lower to middle class home, but my parents always treated me well. His home life had much more turmoil. His father did not live in the same state, his mother was in and out of his life frequently, and he was primarily raised by his grandmother that typically created a hostile environment.
In my opinion, the privilege that I had was a loving, safe, and positive environment to grow up in, when I did nothing to earn it, while he did nothing to deserve the negative home environment he grew up in. I define his home environment as “negative” because he did not have his parents involved in his life, he lived in a lower income class home, and his elderly grandmother, as he would describe it, “did not treat him well, either.”
Did you ever get a sense that the races and ethnicities were different or treated differently in our society, especially in the media? How so?
I did not get that sense until Barack Obama ran for president, and I believe that it continues today with social movements. During the Presidential Race in 2008 I believe it became much more evident to me about how people were treated differently due to their race or ethnicity. Of the many examples throughout the campaign of how he was treated differently, I personally enjoy Salim Muwakkil’s (2009) article, “The Post-Racial President.” In the article he explains Obama’s challenges, biases, and his race-averse campaign. For example, Muwakkil states, “Obama must walk a narrow tightrope slick with cultural biases. As America’s first black president, he must downplay black Americans’ specific needs or he’ll lose his political balance” (Muwakkil, 2009). This quote stands out to me regarding mistreatment because Obama, due to his race, must down play the needs of a group of people in the United States for fear of political imbalance. In my opinion, if anyone in the United States is suffering, they should be prioritized, regardless of their race, ethnicity, etc. In addition, Muwakkil (2009) explains, “Although his campaign was race-averse, his “blackness” added to his allure as a candidate of change. And although his “white” mother and grandparents raised him and he was immersed in “white” society, Obama is classified as black solely because he shares the DNA of his Kenyan father. Our confusion about race has become a routine state of affairs, and it often clouds our social vision.”
I agree with Muwakkil in his analysis that race often clouds our social vision, and it still does today.
Today, in addition to traditional media, I believe social media now plans an extremely important role in how race conversations materialize and movements happen, for example, Black Lives Matter. As found on the Black Lives Matter website, Black Lives Matter, is a “chapter-based, member-led organization whose mission is to build local power and to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.” Though this movement is to bring attention to unnecessary violence inflicted on Black individuals, it was met with resistance. Per Carney’s (2016) article “All Lives Matter, but so Does Race: Black Lives Matter and the Evolving Role of Social Media,” she explains,
“The #BlackLivesMatter slogan met a great deal of resistance in the wake of the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. On social media, one of the primary ways in which people resisted the #BlackLivesMatter movement came in the form of using #AllLivesMatter as a counterslogan to undermine the purpose and message of the #BlackLivesMatter call to action. Many social media users deployed #AllLivesMatter as a way to deny the specific and prominent violence against Blacks by appealing to a larger universal. Thus, in the guise of presumably broader politics, it depoliticized and deracialized the specificity of #BlackLivesMatter.”
I believe that Carney’s analysis is very important because it illustrates social media as a powerful media space to bring attention to the movement, while also creating a space for opposition to undermine it.
Defend or refute the need for the racial categories in our society. If you believe there are any impacts from our racial/ethnic labeling, explain what they are.
I chose to defend the need for racial categories in our society. Personally, I believe that this allows us to better identify ourselves. In addition, I believe that this allows marketers to better target people based on these “labels”. However, my primary defense will be from a public health benefit standpoint. Having people defined in racial categories has the potential to benefit medical personnel as they will have the ability to determine potential health risks more efficiently. As stated in Mays et al. (2013) article, “Classification of Race and Ethnicity: Implications for Public Health,” being able to track these statistics is important for identifying health risks and any significance between races.
“Estimates of vital statistics and the burden of morbidity and mortality in a particular population are of great use to government, in general, and to the field of public health, in particular, for purposes of planning, tracking the needs of citizens, and identifying modifiable health risks.” In addition, “One test of the need for race and ethnicity information in public health measurement is whether race differences are significant after controlling for indicators of social class, including income, education, occupation, and other socioeconomic, demographic, and geographic variables.”
The same analysis also recommends that we move past biologic or genetic perspectives. “We have an exciting opportunity to explore relationships between racial and ethnic populations and their social and physical environments. Further, we soon will have the opportunity to enlarge our focus to their interactions with genetic influences in predicting health outcomes” (Mays, et. al, 2013).
In conclusion, I understand and respect the ideals that racial categories can lead to racism and biases, however, I do feel that categorizations can benefit society if used properly.
References:
Carney, N. (2016). All Lives Matter, but so Does Race. Humanity & Society, 40(2), 180-199.
doi:10.1177/0160597616643868
Mays, V. M., et. al, (2013). CLASSIFICATION OF RACE AND ETHNICITY: Implications for Public
Health. Annual Review of Public Health, 24(1), 83-110. doi:10.1146/annurev.publhealth.24.100901
Muwakkil, S. (2009, August 24). The ‘Post-Racial’ President. Retrieved from
http://inthesetimes.com/article/4750/the_post-racial_president