Race Is A Social Construction

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Social construction is how society groups people and how it gives privileges to certain groups over others. A more specific definition for this would be a theory of knowledge in sociology and communication theory that examines the development of jointly constructed understandings of the world. It says that the understanding, significance, and meaning are developed in coordination with other human beings instead of separately within the individual. Society tells you what race you are classified as and what social class you belong in. A prime example of social construction would be when a baby is born, the first thing a doctor does is check the genitalia of the new born. After determining the gender, the parents become part of the process as…show more content…
Race was formed and given a meaning by society because of the many major events that have happened in history over time. People can be characterized and identified by their skin color. It is something that people have created to separate ourselves and is not something that is an exact thing. For instance, other countries divide races differently while we consider the main races to be black, white, Asian, Native American, and Pacific Islanders. Race is a social construct because theorists simply claim that everyone is the same. For example, W.E.B. du Bois argued how Black Americans received American citizenship, however they did not get the same rights as the whites and other citizens. This highlights the inequalities between black and white rather than allowing the former to practice their own rights. Hence, we can see the social constructionism of race in this context. Gladwell's 'Power of Context' declares that peoples' identities change from the environment they live in. For example, if a person was a white American who grew up in the Philippines, he or she would act, talk, and think like a Filipino and would consider his or her identity as a…show more content…
To be part of a certain ethnic group they share the same culture, not the same genetic appearance. For example, Jews are an extremely diverse ethnic group. There are American Jews, Israeli Jews, Ethiopian Jews, British Jews, Russian Jews, and Chinese Jews. They don't all have the same biological characteristics, but they share the same culture and subjective experiences. People usually try to group an ethnic group by their biology, but this is can be dangerous and could lead to misconceptions. Another example, is of Black people. The culture of African Americans is differing to that of the Caribbean culture and experiences, even though they share similar genetic appearances. In some cases, if an outsider didn't know them they might assume them to belong to the same ethnic group. People build their ethnicities around a shared background, culture, experience, and subjectivity which passes through generations of their

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