Understanding the Meaning and Significance of Race
This week’s Weekly Question has two Parts. Part 1 is more complex than Part 2; please follow all of the instructions in the order suggested and make sure to engage with each aspect of each question. Remember to grapple with the ideas and engage the questions with the course concepts and materials.
Part 1
Step 1: What is “race?” How do you understand “race?” Think carefully about how you understand race and how you have learned to understand race, where/how have you and where/how do you continue to learn about race? Write this down.
Step 2 After you have completed step1 read the AAA Statement on race here (and uploaded on Moodle)
http://www(dot)americananthro(dot)org/ConnectWithAAA/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=2583
and explore the AAA Race Project website. Please pay particular attention to the “Race is not Genetic” section/menu and links
Click here Race is not genetic
Or copy and paste this:
https://understandingrace(dot)org/race-is-not-genetic/
If this link above doesn't work for you go here:
copy and paste https://understandingrace(dot)org/
And then click on the
Step 3 After engaging with these two sources, revisit how you understand race. In an essay a page and a half or so, discuss the following: Has your understanding changed in relation to the course materials? In what ways? Refer to particular information from the AAA statement and Race Project to discuss how your ideas have changed or not.
Part 2
A page or so should work well for this part of the question.
In the Introduction of Worked to the Bone, Pem Buck describes the text as being informed by “the view from under the sink”. What does she mean by this and what is it’s significance for history and an “alternative anthropology”. You might find our concept of positionality to be particularly helpful here.
Discussion Question
Your Name
Subject and Section
Professor’s Name
October 18, 202
People are categorized socially based on their race. Racial classifications were created due to the hierarchical human grouping concept of race to define, separate, and marginalize specific groups across countries, regions, and the globe. Human populations are divided into races based on physical, social, and cultural heritages ("Race"). We always think of race as a distinctive attribute of a person's origin that is typically associated with their physical appearance; we can tell someone's race simply by looking at them from the outside. People all over the world must adapt to their environments to survive, which is why some of them have distinctive qualities to endure in their environments (Buck, 2002). This race is the result of thousands of years of evolution firmly linked to nature.
Not to brag, but I already know that the various races that make up the human race are not considered separate species; my own justification for this is that we are all the same on the inside and only differ in our outward appearance. Similar to a distinct pattern on a related flower but of the same species. I know I can have proof that my thinking is correct since I have learned about this on my own and checked to see if it was accurate.
My understanding back then was shallow and lacked evidence, but now that I have gone through some of these articles, I now have a wider understanding of the word "race." My perspective has changed, and now I cannot unsee what I have imagined in my mind relating to the definition of race and how it is crea...