RACE , ETHINICITY AND CULTURE

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INTRODUCTION

Race, ethnicity and culture and their various derivatives are very close to us . These things mostly ,we can see in Asian country . If someone asked you to describe your identity to them, where would you begin? Would it come down to your skin color or your nationality? What about the language you speak, your religion, your cultural traditions or your family's ancestry? This bewildering question often pushes people to separate their identities into two parts which are race and ethnicity.


 But what do these two terms actually mean. Sociology uses and critiques the concepts of race and ethnicity, connecting them to the idea of majority and minority groups and social structures of inequality, power, and stratification. “Race” refers to physical differences that groups and cultures consider socially significant, while “ethnicity” refers to shared culture, such as language, ancestry, practices, and beliefs. The sociological perspective explores how race and ethnicity are socially constructed and how individuals identify with one or more. Research demonstrates how they are linked to social position and to political and policy debates about issues such as immigration, identity formation, and inter-group relations.

 RACE

A race is a grouping of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into categories generally viewed as distinct by society. The term ‘race’ is not appropriate when applied to national, religious, geographic, linguistic or ethnic groups. Sociological definition of race is a category of people who have been singled out as inferior or superior, often on the basis of real or alleged physical characteristics such as skin color, hair texture, eye shape, or other subjectively selected attributes. When we consider this as biologically , Only 6% of DNA differences in humans can be attributed to racial differences and thus many social and natural scientists have dismissed race as a category. 

Race and Racism

Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to physical appearance and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different race or ethnicity. 


Modern variants of racism are often based in social perceptions of biological differences between peoples. These views can take the form of social actions, practices or beliefs, or political systems in which different races Philosophy of Science are ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other, based on presumed shared inheritable traits, abilities, or qualities . 



when we study the race and racism since history , There are so many conception about race and racism . As examples,

  •  Monogenism (14th – 18th century) Racial classification by origin ,
  •  Polygenism (18th – 19th century) – Focus on inheritance of traits/hierarchy of races ,
  •  Evolutionism (late 19th century) – Races evolved over time, explained the dominance of  Europeans,
  •  Race as Class, Culture (19th cent.)- Race was though to determine social standing and culture ,
  •  Race as Ethnicity,
  •  Nation (19- 20th century) – Racial mixing blurs fixed categories,
  •  Race used as a political strategy. 


 Further more I would like mention an incident in America. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46- year-old black man, was murdered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, while being arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. During the arrest, Derek Chauvin, a white police officer with the Minneapolis Police Department, knelt on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes after he was handcuffed and lying face down.Two other police officers, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, assisted Chauvin in restraining Floyd. A fourth police officer, Tou Thao, prevented bystanders from interfering. 


 CULTURE



Cultural and racial diversity may lead some individuals and societies to form prejudices about members of a particular culture or race and to practice discrimination. The term culture refers to ideas, behaviors, beliefs, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted between generations. While cultural differences may also include racial differences, much diversity exists within one culture

ETHNICITY

Compared to race, ethnicity is more recent, dating back to around 1765–75. It’s based on ethnic, itself a much older word found in the 1300s. Via Latin, ethnic ultimately derives from the Greek éthnos, meaning “nation, people.”


 It’s easy to confuse race and ethnicity. Both words are sometimes, but not always, used to describe a person’s heritage as tied to their ancestry or place of origin. Ethnicity, however, is generally used in reference to a person’s cultural markers, not their physical appearance. An ethnicity is a social group that shares a common and distinctive culture, religion, or language. It also refers to a person’s ethnic traits, background, allegiance, or association. Like race, the meaning and use of the word ethnicity has changed over the last few centuries.





REFERENCES 


• Ballard, R., 2002. Race, ethnicity and culture.

 • Blum, L., 2019. in "Race: What we mean, and What we think we mean", in I'm not a racist, but... Cornell University Press

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