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Yeah it's a bit tricky. A few points to chew on. Race is a social construct. So it might have started as a ethnic marker, but it's constantly evolving. As it s
by ashishk 17y ago
Yeah it's a bit tricky. A few points to chew on.
Race is a social construct. So it might have started as a ethnic marker, but it's constantly evolving. As it stands now, some say that your class actually defines your race.
For example, let's look at your point:
Asian Americans have had a tough time...when it came to product consumption
I would ask, what do Asian Americans buy? Besides specific ethnic foods, the majority of the product consumption (clothes, music, jewelry, cars, houses, technology) are what general well-to-do Americans would buy.
And, ethnically speaking, we all know who wears American Eagle and Banana Republic.
- yummyfajitas 17y agoRace is a social construct. No it isn't. The different races are well defined statistical clusters. If you do a cluster analysis of human genotypes or phenotypes (but give it no racial information), the computer will figure out races for you. And you'll discover the computer agrees with human observers most of the time.
- ZeroGravitas 17y agoCitation needed. I was under the impression that Africans had more genetic variety between them than they do when compared with the rest of the world. I'm also intrigued as to what this computer would make of Australian aborigines which apparently are genetically on the far side of Africans from Asians despite both being "black".
- cglee 17y agoThe scientific categorizations of race may be based on genetics, but the racial categories used in the US is definitely socially constructed. We decided to use geography for some groups (ie, Asians, Pacific Islanders), culture/linguistics for another (ie, Hispanic/Latino), and colors (ie, Blacks, Whites).