Western States - Construction of Race

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Defining Ethnicity & Nationality(These terms are often confused with race)Ethnicity refers to particular groups of peoplethat share some common ancestry, traditions,language, or dialect.Before the world was made up of distinct nationstatesor countries, certain pieces of land were associatedwith ethnic groups. Some examples are:• Anglos and Saxons – England• Maori – New Zealand• Mayan – Southern Mexico/Central America• Greeks – Greece• Masai – the Great Rift Valley of East Africa• Pueblo– New MexicoAs some countries were made up mostly oneethnic group, people began to conclude that nationality(the country which a person is a citizen of) wasthe same as ethnicity, i.e. a person from Denmark isa Dane or Danish. But more often the name of thecountry doesn’t refer to the ethnic origins of its citizens.A person from Spain would be thought of as“Spanish”, although their ethnicity could be Basque,Catalan, Gallego or Gitano. Many countries like Spainare actually made up of diverse ethnic groups. TheUnited States is a perfect example of this reality.Many people like to make ethnic distinctions aswell as national distinctions to hold on to their ethnicculture and identity.• Italian-American – (Ethnicity is Italian and nationalityis US American)• Mexican-American• Chinese-American – (Ethnicity is Chinese andnationality is US American)Of course, ethnicity becomes more confusing inthe process of immigration and assimilation. As an example,we know in the case of China there are many,many ethnicities and that diversity gets lost often inhow people identify their ethnic identity to non-Chinesepeople here in the U.S. So although a Chinese-American’s specific ethnicity may be Han, Manchu,Yi or another of the over 50 ethnicities in China, herein the United States those differences get subsumed asbeing “Chinese.”What is this thing called Race?Race is a false classification of people that isnot based on any real or accurate biologicalor scientific truth. In other words, the distinctionwe make between races, has nothing to do withscientific truth.Race is a political construction. A politicalconstruction is something created by people;that is not a natural development; is constructedor created for a political purpose.The concept of race was created as a classificationof human beings with the purpose ofgiving power to white people and to legitimizethe dominance of white people over non-whitepeople.2The Construction of Race & Racism
Now we are going to take some time to prove these points bylooking at the history of the development of race and racism. The historyof the construction of racism is very long so this is not a comprehensivehistory lesson. We will provide a broad overview of how variousaspects of white society were involved in the construction of raceand racism: religion, science, medicine, philosophy, government, etc.We will also be jumping around a bit in time, but will always try andmake time periods clear.HistoricalConstructSReligion as ajustification for racism:During the reformation (16th Century [1500s] & 17th Century [1600s]), a key question among Christianreligious hierarchy was whether Blacks and “Indians” had souls and/or were human. In this time period,Europeans were exposed more frequently to Africans and the indigenous people of North and SouthAmerica, and the church vacillated between opinions. The Catholic and the Protestant churches arrived at differentanswers to the question at different times, which created significant differences between the two systems ofslavery. The Catholic Church was the first to admit Blacks and Indians had souls, which meant in many Catholiccolonies it was against the law to kill a slave without reason. The Protestant-Calvinist Church wanted to separateand distinguish themselves fromCatholicism, and therefore was muchslower in recognizing the humanity ofAfricans and Indians.Slavery Ordained of God – 1857 – an example of many articles using religion tojustify slaveryWith the increasing importanceof slavery, religion was usedas a means to justify racist divisions,classifying people of color as ‘paganand soulless’. However, “As substantialnumbers of people of colorwere converted to Christianity, and asreligion itself lost much of its poweras a legitimizing agent, justificationsfor the brutality of slavery changed.”The slave-based economy in the southnecessitated a racist exploitative system,which led to the development ofbiological, zoological and botanicaltheories to ‘explain human differenceand to justify slavery.’ 1The Construction of Race & Racism 3
Page 1: A History:The Constructionof Race a
Page 5 and 6: Science as ajustification forracism
Page 7 and 8: 19th century magazine cover editori
Page 9 and 10: Chart illustrated the rapid growth
Page 11 and 12: ManifestDestinyManifest destiny ref
Page 13 and 14: White is an artificialconstruct bec

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