A racial understanding

For several years, the United States' concept and understanding of race and gender had taken on a new form, provoking important sociological debates. Throughout America's history, a racial sense has been woven and debated around biological differences. Race, on the other hand, is a product of socio-cultural differences within various population settings globally, according to W.E.B. Du Bois, an American sociologist (Yosso and Solorzano 2005, p.43). Since a cluster of genes does not make a white person or a black person poor or rich, racism based on skin color lacks the rational capacity to understand human diversity. Therefore, the race is a social construct rather than biological.

Invention of Race

In the 1620s, European settlers' economic activities included mining, pillaging, and gold searching. The profits from these activities became dismal, and the only scheme of making quick cash was through coercion of Native Americans to grow tobacco on a large scale (Jones 2015). The move to compel the locals failed, and as a result, there was a lack of enough labour. The Virginia colonists resorted in kidnapping and buying of vulnerable servants to work on their farms. The abuse of human rights was intensive because the servants could be whipped and even get killed due to over working hours. A domestic threat emerged where the former servants subjected to abject slavery became land owners creating competition against the colonists. Therefore, the only way to sustain profits and remain in business was to kidnap people from the African continent. The Africans brought to Virginia fought for freedom, leading to the creation of White supremacy. The skin colour was politically instigated to the extent of using it as a mark of slavery.


The Bacon's Rebellion of 1676 was a significant landmark that saw the cohesion of indentured servants and African slaves in creating a strong militia force against the planters. The rebellion led to the destruction of vast tracts of lands and demolition of the governance structure. Indeed, it was a turning point in history, blacks' and whites' uniting as one race against land injustice, a social revolution (Jones 2015). As a counter measure by planters to weaken the force, they introduced the colour line to create division in the social movement. For instance, the whites were allowed to become land owners, possess guns and become active in juries. They applied the strategy in varying proportions in different localities. For example, where the Blacks were concentrated such as the Caribbean, they appointed the fellow blacks to govern others s that they can attain a balance in their political influence. All in all, Virginia became the mother of the race due to the widespread of slavery activities.

The agrarian revolution led to the implementation of the relevant law. The United States declared that all people are equal. However, the ideology of the whites' supremacy was intense to the extent of propagating African-American inferiority. They resorted to the equal but different treatment of the law hence facing a crisis of racial profiling such as the Jim Crow laws. The laws interfered with the daily life of Blacks because access to public services was restricted, disfranchising them to use libraries, board buses, attend schools, book restrooms, and restaurants. It is even disturbing because the local government and the vigilantes were on the forefront to ensure that the oppressive Jim Crow laws were fully implemented (Khattab et al 2011, p.1466). Based on the above outline of the law, separate is never equal.

Disguise in Law

Historically, the law has been abused to hide a lie about race. For example, the naturalization law of 1790 in the United States created limitations on attaining American citizenship. The law defined a citizen as a white person who has resided in the US for more than two years and has a history of good conduct before the court. It is insightful on understanding misuse the rule of law using the case of Plessy v.Furguson of 1896; the ruling reaffirmed the legitimacy of division whites' and blacks' railroad cars (Bonilla-Silva 1999, p.899). The court decision qualified the life of a white person precious more than the Black person. In context, people look different by the virtue that they evolved in an entirely different environment that shaped their physical appearance due to the influence of various environmental conditions. For instance, it is factual that people who established their habitats around the equator have a dark complexion as a consequence of direct sunlight.

Abolishing the idea of appearance, as human beings, we have the ability to produce melanin, a pigment that protects us from the UV light. However, light skinned individuals who lack sufficient deposit of melanin can be infected by skin cancer when exposed to prolonged sun rays. However, the condition does not pose a danger to the reproduction ability of a person. On the other hand, individuals who live far away from the equator such as Polar Regions lack vitamin D necessary for bone formation and other diseases. However, paler skins are adaptable in such regions. However, UV light has been proven to be dangerous in the processes of folic acid, and as a consequence, it has the potential of causing birth complications. Therefore, children can be born with defects. The dark skin is more adaptable to sunny conditions due to the high ability to absorb and protect against Ultraviolet light. From the above biological explanation, it can conclude that it is the only identifiable evidence that scientist can cling on to prove the existence of different complexions, although it lacks sufficient evidence to categorize race in a biological context.

There is a wider scope of genetic variation among races than a natural dispensation. For example, African-American genes have sickle cell condition as a common problem than any other population in America. In spite of that, it cannot be categorized as a "Racial gene" since it is present in other parts of the world such as; south Asia, middle east, southern Europe and few regions in Africa. Therefore, the definition of race basing on the skin doesn't mean anything about the discrete characteristics of a person. More so, the race is a matter of culture. It is wrong for commentators or news reporters to brand stories using colour. For example, reporting a white police officer shooting a white guy paints colour than the profound reasons that led to the actual shooting. American culture is fond of imposing colour to immigrants despite having a different place of origin. To them, all African immigrants are blacks. Amadou Diallo was gunned down in 1999 by a New York police officer because he was a threat to security, a perception of African Americans. Amadou was an immigrant from West Africa who had not even established the joy of being a visitor in America. He was African, but the atmosphere of the American culture branded him as an African American. Therefore, race becomes a way of identification when charged with criminal allegations.


Real World Consequences of Whiteness and Blackness

The social construction of “whiteness” and “blackness” creates a world of inequality and inferiority (Nobles 2002, p.52). For example, the signification of one race than the other leads to racial discrimination regarding resource allocation and authorization in a social system. More so, victimization by race has become common in America today. “Whiteness” and “Blackness” has also found the way in the current political system leading to interference in the normative regulations. For example, Obama, fought against racism to clinch the victory for presidency seat in America as the first black presidency.


Overcoming Racial Division

Society should realize that race is not realistic so that to overcome extremist racial profiling. It is, therefore, logical to assume that racism will become extinct when we avoid looking at things, people and ideas through a racial lens to arrive at judgments. However, the solution that Fanon offers falls under intense criticism because the claims lay forth does not take into consideration the cause of race factors. A similar proponent of his argument is, Simmons, an advisor on sexism and homophobia, believes that avoiding the use of derogative words can transform the hip hop culture. Therefore, to overcome the negative social construct of race, it is necessary to be cognizance with race and not abandon it as in the case of Fanon (Loveman and Muniz 2007, p.915). There is need to create a shift in the way we define and understand race and social differences.

Strengthening of cultural arts festivals is one of the best platforms to celebrate mixed racial stories to enhance cultural experience. It is possible through films production, visual arts, and book reading. An example of such festival is the 2015 festival held in Los Angeles about, "The Girl who fell from the Sky." Such events unravel the untold stories on race, as a result, leading to increased connectedness across different cultures and religion. It also boosts constructive discussion about race as a social construct to create a valuable prism for social transformation. Additionally, the relational concept is important in profiling the influential groups in society, an attempt to break their dominance. For example, linking the colonizers with colonized people as well as the reformers and the objectives of reforms to develop complementary traits, helps in reshaping the self-identities such as becoming moral, rational and benevolent rather than being immoral, irrational and needy (Schwartzman 2007, p.940). Relationality will also assist in pointing out how "differences" are interconnected, a concept that can be understood through experiential diversity. It is true that the lives of different groups relate despite a lack of face to face link. For example, a white person might be enjoying the state's privileges and high living standards at the expense of exploiting the people of another colour even though he or she may not be involved directly in taking that advantage (Wacquant 2007, p.165). Finally, relationality also helps to counteract the social constructions of race. It gives the race a post modern approach to create new meaning such as race can be anything if we attach meaning to it because it is a free term, hence, abolishing the fixing of categories.

Conclusion

From the scholars’ arguments, therefore, there is no enough evidence that scientists can attribute race to biology. The race is, therefore, a social construct created and influenced by indicators of social status and colour. The formation and implementation of laws as part of the affirmative action should not be the cause of recreating race in a new version but rather a means of solving the problems that revolve around race. The institutions that fight against inequality and racial discrimination should operate outside the anti-racist masks while internally operate racially, for example, the Black people movements and the civil right movements. The culture representation is another influencing factor that can lead to misinterpretation of a race. Strong culture, will, therefore, promote multicultural consciousness to avoid friction and rise of rebellious organizations in society.



Works Cited

Bonilla-Silva, E., 1999. The essential social fact of “race”. American Sociological Review, 64(6), pp. 899-906.

Jones, B., 2015. The social construction of race. [Online] Available at: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/06/racecraft-racism-social-origins-reparations [Accessed on Aug. 7, 2017].

Khattab, N. et al., 2011. Economic activity in the South Asian population in Britain: the impact of ethnicity, religion and class. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34(9), pp. 1466-81.

Loveman, M., and Muniz, J., 2007. How Puerto Rico became white: boundary dynamics and intercensus racial reclassification. American Sociological Review, 72(6), pp. 915-39.

Nobles, M., 2002. Racial categorization and censuses. In Kertzer, D. and Arel, D. (Eds.) Census and Identity: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses (pp. 43-70). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schwartzman, L., 2007. Does money whiten? Intergenerational changes in racial classification in Brazil. American Sociological Review, 72(6), pp. 940-63.

Wacquant, L., 2007. From conflation to comparison: how Banlieues and ghetto converge and contrast. In Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality pp. 135-163). London: Polity.

Yosso, T., and Solorzano, D., 2005. Conceptualizing a critical race theory in sociology. In Romero, M. and Margolis, E. (Eds.) Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities (pp. 117-146). Malden, MA: Blackwell.