Monday, August 22, 2011

Race & Ethnicity

Aubrey J. J.

What a word to describe a group of people of different cultures and characteristics. It is also fascinating that because we may be of the same race we may not be of the same ethnic group do to religious beliefs or other boundaries. Either way people must be identified some kind of way to their respective nationality, but most of us have been guilty in our personal bias or feelings toward a different race, be it positive or negative. I mean, what if we did not describe black people as of the African American race would we have racism? Sure we would we just would not call it that, I guess? What is more interesting about the process of race when it comes to identifying if a person should be classified as African American is the fact that all you need to qualify as Black is to have a very low percentage of DNA from the black race and you are in. Tiger woods is a great example of this in his comment once made that said, "I'm not really black, I'm 10% black", What?


About 33 minutes into their Q and A about race and ethnicity Tiger Woods is used as an example for an intro to a great comment and question about race. We find that there are a lot or people that have a problem with their own race because they personally would rather not be identified with a particular group. That is sad to hear because there are millions of people that are very young and uncertain about their ethnicity or race because of ignorance and fear. For example, if in the 1960's I was a person that looked almost white I would probably choose to be identified as a white man more quickly than I would identify myself as a black man. However, today as we have a African American President of this great United States in Barack Obama many people that would not identify them selves as black in the 1960's would quickly identify them selves as black today because of the different times that we are in now as a Nation and People

Because of this of race and ethnicity we see problems of injustice and standards of equality which tend to be unfair depending on what color you are. Equality of conditions are far from the idea that everyone should have an equal starting point from which to pursue his or her goals. Race seems to be the ruler of it all? Where you are from and what you have been associated with and who your parents are also plays a big part in describing  
your race and ethnicity as well. Just give a new born Chinese baby to a Hispanic family and watch who the Chinese baby turns out to become, and how the baby identifies itself with its culture. Sounds interesting, right?
Depending how well the Hispanic race is received during the time the baby is old enough to identify social groups or ethnic groups will determine who the baby will choose to identify itself as.

For the most part I think we all are proud of our race and ethnicity we all just have had trouble in our youth with fitting in and identifying with our own culture and race at times due to a number of reasons that you can come up with on your own as you think on this topic of race and ethnicity

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