ten things everyone should know about race

everybody. So this is Neo and he's gonna be the

guest lecture today.

I'm sure that he would be much more entertaining than

me. And, uh, so today we're gonna talk about 10

things everybody should know about race.

And if you were in my intercultural class, you probably

already know about these 10 things because I think they're

really important.

And oh, he's bored already.

Okay, well, I'm gonna let you get down then.

Neo Say bye bye.

I like.

Okay. All right.

Okay. Thank you for your contribution.

Okay, So I thought that would be little smile for

you, perhaps.

Okay, so I just want to talk about 10 things

that everybody should know about race.

And like I said, I talked about this in my

intercultural class, but I think it's really important for us

to know about in gender, race and media to because

oftentimes people don't think about the idea that race is

socially constructed, meaning that just like gender is socially constructed.

Race isn't a biological concept, and I'm not saying that

racism isn't riel or that people don't use race as

a way to categorize others, but that scientifically speaking race

is not a thing.

So the first point is, race is a modern idea,

and again, I will post these notes to you so

that you can review them a swell.

So the first thing about race being a modern idea?

It's the idea that race, the notion of race and

the concept of race in the term of race hasn't

always been around hasn't always been a thing.

So ancient societies like the Greeks did not divide people

according to physical distinctions.

People were divided according to other things religion, status, language,

geographic region.

That was a way to categorize people.

But people didn't, um, enslave others or categorize them according

to distinctions that we think of when we think of

race. Uh, actually, the word race doesn't even show up

until a poem in 15 08 by someone named William

Dunbar. Next point Number two Race has no genetic basis,

which is what I mentioned just a moment ago.

So there's not one characteristic trait or gene that distinguishes

all members of one so called race from another, and

actually the website that I use for this particular section

talks about.

You could look at your fingerprints.

You could look at blood type, you could look at

skin color, and there's no one trait that would distinguish

everyone who we consider erased.

Whether that's Caucasian, Asian would have you, that there's not

one characteristic that everybody within that group shares the next

one. Human sub species simply don't exist.

Unlike many animals, modern humans simply have not been around

long enough for isolated enough to evolve into subspecies or

the word we use.

Races, despite surface appearances, were one of the most genetically

similar of all.

Species number four skin color really is only skin deep.

Most traits are inherited independently from one another.

So, for instance, of the genes that influence skin color

have nothing to do with the genes that influence hair.

For my shape, blood type, musical talent, athletic ability, forms

of intelligence.

Knowing someone's skin color doesn't tell you anything about that

person. So let me talk for a minute about what

are called social markers, and that's something that comes up

in the video race.

The power of an illusion.

So social markers are things that we think tell us

someone's race, whether it's eye shape, skin tone, hair texture,

those kinds of things that when we look at someone,

we think we're able to identify their race.

And until the 19 sixties, the census, which is happening

right now.

That's how people would actually identify you.

You wouldn't self report people would.

Actually, the census taker would establish your race regardless of

whether you identified by that race or not.

So the idea of skin color really is only skin

deep. Yes, there are differences with regard to, for instance,

sickle cell anemia.

If you've heard of that disease, and it's most often

associated with African Americans and being predominant in the African

American community, but it really is more geographically based than

that. So it's not something that's specific to the African

American community is something that's specific to skin tone.

So it's something that is prevalent in many different communities

throughout the world, depending upon someone's skin tone and their

susceptibility to sickle cell anemia on those traits.

So number five most variation is within, not between races.

So what they mean by that is that about 85%

of all variation exists within a particular population.

Whether that's talking about Koreans, people who are Spanish Cherokee

Native Americans think Irish Italians and about 94% of variation

can be found within any one continent.

So that means that two Korean people could be as

genetically different as someone who is Korean and someone who

was Italian in terms of their heritage.

Six. Slavery predates rates, meaning that oftentimes when we think

of slavery, we think of it associated with dividing people

up according to their race.

But actually, slavery was a concept well before this notion

of race occurred.

So societies have enslaved others, often as a result of

conquest or war, even debt.

But physical characteristics or a belief in natural inferiority wasn't

a way to divide people.

It was, um, something that was unique.

Unfortunately to United States so often times when we talk

about slavery in the United States, people say, Well, there

was enslavement by other countries of other people's.

Yes, that's true.

But the United States was one of the first countries

to establish race as a way to enslave people and

create a notion of superiority and inferiority.

But slavery was a thing before we even thought about

this notion of race and social markers.

Next one race and freedom evolved together What this means

is that we established the United States on the basis

of all of the rights within the Bill of Rights

in the Constitution and the idea of all men being

created equal.

But we still have this concept of slavery.

And as we know, there were sleeves in the White

House. Different presidents actually owned slaves and passed them down

through their family members.

But this idea of race, it was a way to

allow some people to have a sense of freedom and

others. Not so.

The idea of race helped explain why some people could

be denied rights in terms of being enslaved and other

people could take for granted rights.

And a lot of early laws.

Even citizenship laws, were based on the concept of race.

In order to be truly accepted into society and to

even be a naturalized citizen, you had to be considered

white. Number eight is race justified social inequalities as natural.

So I'm gonna read this and then explain it.

As the race idea evolved, white superiority became common sense

in America.

It justified not only the extermination of Native Americans, the

exclusion of Asian immigrants, for instance, there was the Chinese

Exclusion Act and various laws, which band Asian immigration well

into the 19 sixties and the taking of Mexican lands

by a nation that professed a belief in democracy.

So what they're talking about here is that race, just

like in my last point Number seven race, was a

way to say that different people should be accorded different

rights and opportunities and privileges.

So it was a way of saying that based on

your race, treating you in an unequal fashion was perfectly

acceptable. So the concept of race was used as a

way to create hierarchy within our society, which became institutionalized.

And I'll talk about that in a later video and

then moving on to number nine.

Race isn't biological, but racism is still riel.

And obviously we know that racism is still a problem

within the United States.

So just because I'm saying that racism is not a

biological concept or meaningful concept within scientific community, racism is

still riel, meaning that people think of race.

And it's a powerful social idea that allows people based

on identifying others.

According to those social markers that I explained like one's

hair texture or eye shape or skin tone as a

way to create advantages that disproportionately affect some people and

provide advantages while disadvantaging and oppressing others.

So racism is very riel, and I would not suggest

that just because I'm saying that races in a biological

concept that racism is in a very real social concept.

And then the last one is one that you probably

have heard before in terms of the notion of color

blindness. And, uh, the important point in Number 10 is

that color blindness will not end racism.

And what this means is when we think of Martin

Luther King Junior's speech regarding judging people by the color,

the content of their character and not the color of

their skin, that it means that we judge people and

evaluate people and assess them on the basis of who

they are and how they treat us and their values

and qualities, and not the stereotypes like the color of

their skin that we buy into, Unfortunately.

But color blindness is also a problem because colorblindness kind

of wipes everything away, so to speak, in terms of

saying Well, I see you as an individual, which is

great, but in that same vein, You're also not acknowledging

that someone's experience in this culture may have been very

different than yours based on the color of their skin.

So, yes, you're treating that person as an individual.

But society hasn't treated that person as an individual.

So color blindness means that you are failing to acknowledge

the different resource is opportunities, privileges, rights and, um, and

and protections that I recorded some people and not others

on the basis of the color of someone's skin.

So, um, I'll just read this last statement.

Pretending Race doesn't exist is not the same as creating

equality races more than stereotypes and individual treatment.

To combat racism, we need to identify and remedy social

policies and institutional practices that advantage some groups at the

expense of others.

So that will conclude the notes on 10 things that

I want you to know about race.

So after watching this video, make sure to take a

look at the further explanations that are listed in the

notes that I will post a cz well.

And a lot of this is reinforced in the videos

that I'm asking you to watch, especially race the power

of an illusion.

And that website that accompanies it is also something that

I will draw from.

And they talk a lot about many of these points

in the race.

The Power of an Illusion Documentary Episode number three, The

house we live in.

So I will be talking about that film and going

over answers to questions and providing notes as well as

the other two films as well.

Okay, be well.

And I hope you enjoyed the guest lecturer for the

first few moments, although he managed to escape to the

living room and is now playing with a stuffed pineapple.

All right, Have a good night, guys.

ten things everyone should know about race

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