Summary for Racial Identities From the early parts of the American history, race has always been a challenging issue. There have been several interpretations of Race and its resulting issues. Kwame Anthony Appiah’s article, Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections gives clarity to the issue of race with a strong argument on the definition of the term race. To be specific Appiah argues that there is no race in the American society. Therefore, the social distinction of this society cannot simply be understood by the issue of race.
The author initiates his argument on race by providing two methods that can be used to interpret and understand the issue of race. The two methods are the referential and ideational approaches. He goes ahead,…show more content… They are the vague criteria theory and the strict criteria theory. Appiah begins his explanation through the introduction of the Thomas Jefferson and Arnold racial concept. Thomas Jefferson was among the people who played an important role in the formation of America. He authored the declaration of independence and later became the third president of America. On the other hand, Arnold was a famous British Critic. Jefferson and Arnold argued that as long as an individual belongs to a particular race, he will have similar characteristics in his Psychology, physic, literacy and morals with the rest of the member’s of his…show more content… Some popular examples include; there is only a small number of black billionaires and only a few scientists. This can be explained by the environment black people stay in, in that due to racism they hardly get equal education compared to the whites. If you take this example then it is clear that that there is no correlation between an individuals capability and race as many people might have thought. He further argues that, people are a product of gene and not essence, we interact with the environment as much as we interact with ourselves and there is very minimal correlation between genes that are responsible for color and those that fix our other