Race Is Universal Essay

Words: 382
Pages: 2

Why IS it that the concept of ‘race’ is still so universally believed?
The durability and power of the ‘race’ idea is based on the ways in which it makes sense of the world for people. ‘Race’ provides a label for physical, social and cultural difference but also superiority/ inferiority, purity/impurity inclusion/exclusion.
What has to be discussed in this question is that what we currently take for granted -that human differences (skin colour really)-can divide us in to ‘races’-was not always the case. Our current social understanding of ‘race’ has only emerged as an accepted ‘truth’ or social fact since 19th Century Europe when humanity was divided hierarch ally by skin colour.
What did society have before ‘race’? Indeed-which society(ies)? What is our current understanding of ‘race’ - and are we now ‘post - race’ if we are saying that ‘race’ is an empty category?
How is ‘race’ produced and internalised through language?
The term ethnicity can be as problematic as the notion of ‘race’. You should discuss this term, also discuss racism and ‘new racism’ (cultural), racialism(ist) in this question. 19th
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Stock implied a gradation of inferior and superior beings which did not necessarily relate to skin colour, but was wrapped up with science, politics=’race science’-and therefore the justification of class and slavery. The notion of ‘race’ has been associated with the biological, notions of inferiority/superiority, hierarchy and persecution (think of Nazi Germany or Israel/Palestine for example). Miles (1993) argues that whatever the term implies there is ‘an acceptance of the existence of biological differences between human beings, differences which express the existence of distinct, self -reproducing groups’. There is an argument that sociology is very good at explaining HOW ‘race’/racism is used-but not WHY. Can psychoanalysis help explain