The Defining Traits between Race and Ethnicity in Todays Society - Essay Example

Race and Ethni Race and Ethni Introduction Have you, at one time, sat down and asked yourself what the defining traits between race and ethnicity in today’s society are? Some people think that it is basically a matter of skin colour, and others think that it is solely a matter of their place of origin (ONeil 2006, p. 1). However, you need to ask yourself what factors are more significant than others when it comes to analysing the difference between race and ethnicity. For instance, what makes someone Latino, African, English or Arab? Is it their country of origin? Is it their spoken language? Is it their family values? Is it their country of origin? Is it their religion? Or is it their skin colour, meaning that one is basically African or African American when they are black or Hispanic when they are white? It is also important to ask yourself whether a non-Spanish or non-English speaking person of one of the Mexico’s Indian communities automatically can be Hispanic or are citizens of Portugal and Spain automatically Brazilian Hispanics (ONeil 2006, p. 1). The right answers to these inquiries are perhaps not fully vivid to most people today. Furthermore, these answers most probably differ depending on different regions of the world. The manners in which people acquire their own group identities are overly multifaceted. Likewise, the manner in which society assigns group identities is not, at all times, straightforward (Cornell & Hartmann 2006, p. 21). In today’s world, ethnicity and race are not obviously rooted in criteria which everybody comprehends, concurs with, and can simply use. Therefore, someone else might label you in a manner which you deem inaccurate or, at times, very offensive, which forms a barrier to open communication even if it was not intended (Cornell & Hartmann 2006, p. 21). To understand the human diversity of any nation, it is significant to first comprehend the principles normally utilised for making group distinctions. These are mainly rooted on biological and/or cultural factors (Hughes 2003, p. 15). People tend to view each others in terms of economic class, age, gender, religion, ethnicity and race. Each one of use is basically an affiliate of a particular group in other of these criteria and their significance varies when it comes to social situations. For instance, today, race and ethnicity often have the most far reaching effect on us as human beings (Brubaker 2009, p. 21). This paper will define race and ethnicity and discuss their differences. The objective of this article is to help the reader neutrally analyse the phenomena of ethnicity and race as well as a number of the global patterns of discrimination derived from them. In doing this, it is significant to suspend our personal biases and to assume a cultural relativity method. Definitions Ethnicity Ethnicity is the chosen cultural and, at times, physical traits utilised to categorise individuals into categories or clusters regarded to be considerably different from others (Graham, Taylor, & Ho 2009, p. 5). Some of the commonly acknowledged ethnic groups are Asian British, Black British Chinese British, Latinos, American Indians, African Americans, Chinese and European Americans, among others. In some situations, ethnicity concerns only a loose group recognition that even lacks even one common cultural tradition. This is case with a lot of Irish and German Britons or Americans. In comparison, a number of ethnic groups are coherent subcultures that have a shared body of tradition, as well as language. Newly arrived immigrants normally fit this pattern. It is significant not to confound the word minority with ethnic group (Solomos & Back 2000, p. 53). This is because ethnic groups might either be a majority or a minority in a certain population. Whether a group is categorised as a majority or minority is not an absolute fact, as well, but relies on the point of view. For example, in some areas along the eastern boarder of the United Kingdom, people of Irish ancestry are the overwhelming majority population and control a majority of the political and social institutions, but are still described by the national and state governments as the minority group (Collins 1990, p. 40). In small homogenous societies, such as those of hunters and gatherers and pastoralists click this icon to hear the preceding term pronounced, there is essentially only one ethnic group and no minorities. For most individuals, ethnic classification means a link between culture and biological inheritance. They claim that biological inheritances influence much of someone’s cultural identity. However, if this was factual, for example, African Americans characteristics such as “black English” would, thus stem from genetic inheritance (Collins 1990, p. 40). Therefore, culture and biological race is not one and the same thing. The groundbreaking English anthropologist, Edward Tylor, might have been the initial scientist to comprehend this realty and also confirm it in print publications (Mirza 1997, p. 99). In 1871, Tylor claimed that cultural characteristics are only learned (Mirza 1997, p. 99). Therefore, a child can be placed into another culture following his or her birth and can be fully enculturated to that culture, in spite of his or her skin colour, shape of the body and other set racial traits. For instance, a majority of the people from African are black, but that does not necessary mean that all of them are Swahilis; some might be Senegalese, Sudanese, all because they do not speak the same language or share similar cultural patters because of the fact that all of them were raise in totally different societies (Marger 2011, p. 40). An African American is very much culturally similar to a European American, but very much different from a West African from Nigeria or any other part of that continent (Marger 2011, p. 40). Race Race, on the other hand, is a biological subspecies or a number of species, comprising of a relatively distinct population with anatomical characteristics, which differentiate it completely from other races (Williams 1991, p. 6). However, this biologist’s meaning does not perfectly fit in today’s reality of human genetics variation. Genetically, humans are an overly homogenous species. In fact, every human is 99.9% genetically identical, plus a majority of the variations, which does take place, is in the distinction between females and males and their distinctive personal traits (Williams 1991, p. 6). This homogeneity is overly odd in the animal kingdom because even our closest biological akin, the monkeys have 2 to 3 times more genetic disparity compared to humans and orangutans have 8 to 10 times more disparity (Williams 1991, p. 6). Therefore, it is clear that human races are mainly cultural creations realities and not biological. The frequently held principle in the reality of human biological races is rooted in the false supposition that anatomical characteristics, such as specific facial characteristics and skin color, group together in one distinct group of individuals, but they do not. This is because there are no obviously distinctions between "white", "black", or other races (Brondolo et al. 2009, p. 70). Also, the widely held perception of human races overlooks the fact that anatomical characteristics allegedly identifying a specific race are normally found extensively in other populations. This is because comparable factors in unfamiliar parts of the globe usually lead to an evolution of comparable adaptations. For example, intense light from the sun in tropical latitudes is normally for darker skin-coloured people to act as their protections from UV radiation (Brondolo et al. 2009, p. 70). Therefore, dark-brown, skin coloured traits of Sub-Saharan Africans can normally be found in unrelated populaces in the Indian subcontinent, New Guinea, Australia and also elsewhere in the Southern Western Pacific region (Brondolo et al. 2009, p. 71). The genuine patterns of biological disparity among human beings are overly complex and always changing. They can be misleading, as well. All of us can be categorised into a number of diverse "races", relying on the characteristics, which are stressed (Iackson 2012, p. 33). For instance, if humans are classified on the basis of blood types or stature, the geographic alignments will be obviously diverse from those set apart on the ground of skin color. Utilising the B blood type for classifying races, Australian Aborigines would be bumped together with a majority of Native Americans (Arai & Kivel 2009, p. 453). A number of Africans would also be in a similar race as Europeans whereas others would be deemed as Asians. From time and again, in the Western World, race has been defined on the grounds of very few superficial anatomical traits, which can be readily identified at a distance, thus allowing discrimination (Iackson 2012, p. 33). Centering on such deceptive differentiating characteristics as body shape, skin colour and texture of the hair allows people to magnify the distinctions and overlook similarities among humans (Arai & Kivel 2009, p. 453). It is also significant to bear in mind that these characteristics are no more precise in making distinctions between human clusters compared to any other genetically inherited traits. All such efforts to scientifically divide humans into biological elements are normally fruitless (Iackson 2012, p. 33). Differences between Ethnicity and Race When it comes to their significance, ethnicity basically connotes shared cultural traits, as well as a shared group history (ONeil 2006, p. 1). A number of ethnic groups share religious or linguistic characteristics, as well, whereas others share the same history, but not one religion or language between them. When it comes to the significance of race, on the other hand, race assumes shared genetic or biological characteristics, whether asserted or actual (Cornell & Hartmann 2006, p. 54). In the early 19th century, racial disparities were mainly ascribed significance in areas of health, intelligence, as well as personality. There was no proof confirming such notions. Another difference between ethnicity and race can be seen in their genealogy. Genealogy refers to the study of families in addition to the tracing of their history and lineages (Cornell & Hartmann 2006, p. 55). In genealogy, ethnicity is described in reference to the shared genealogy, whether presumed or actual. Normally, if people consider that they came from a specific group, and that they want to be linked to that group, then they are members of that group. However, when it comes to race, racial classes arise from a shared genealogy because of geographical isolation. In today’s world, this isolation has faded away and racial clusters have mixed (Hughes 2003, p. 31). Ethnic groups differentiate themselves differently from one era to another. They normally look to define themselves, but are defined through the stereotypes of dominant groups. Races, on the other hand, are mainly assumed to be differentiated through facial types and skin colour among other factors. Nevertheless, the scientific grounds of racial differences are overly weak. Scientific research has proved that racial genetic disparities are weak apart from when it comes to skin colour (Brubaker 2009, p. 39). In the early 19th century, there was development of the political ideology of ethnic nationalism, which meant creating countries rooted in a presumed shared ethnic origin, for instance, Italians, Britons, Germans, Swedish and Dutch among others (Brondolo et al. 2009, p. 70). When it came to race, in the same 19th century, the idea of nationalism was normally utilised to validate the domination of one race over another in a specific country. In the closing stages of the 20th century, in major countries such as the U.K. and the U.S., the legal system along with their official ideology forbid ethnic-based discrimination, but in the closing stages of the 20th century, the legal system and the official ideology stressed on racial equality (Brondolo et al. 2009, p. 70). Normally, brutal conflicts among ethnic groups have existed all through history, as well as across the world, but a majority of the ethnic groups, in fact, got along serenely with one another in many countries most of the time. Racial discrimination remains a persisting problem all over the world. Nevertheless, there are fewer race-based clashes in the 21st century than compared to other centuries. An example of an ethnic conflict is the one between Sinhalese and Tamil populations in Sri Lanka and an example of an racial conflict is the one between African-Americans and white people in the United States, particularly during the civil rights movement (ONeil 2006, p. 1). Conclusion In conclusion, it is obvious now that people create our identities, not nature as it was previously thought. Ethnicity and racial groups are mainly historical and cultural constructions. They are manly social instead of biological phenomena, but this does not imply that they do not exist. Race is real in today’s world so is ethnicity. Therefore, in order to comprehend them, we have to look into social interactions and culture fully rather than just biology. References Arai, S & Kivel, B D 2009, "Critical race theory and social justice perspectives on whiteness, difference (s) and (anti) racism: A fourth wave of race research in leisure studies," Journal of Leisure Research vol. 41, no. 4, p. 459. Brondolo, E et al. 2009, "Coping with racism: A selective review of the literature and a theoretical and methodological critique," Journal of Behavioral Medicine vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 64-88. Brubaker, R 2009, "Ethnicity, race, and nationalism," Annual Review of Sociology vol. 35, no. 5, pp. 21-42. Collins, P H 1990, Black feminist thought, Unwin Hyman, London. Cornell, S & Hartmann, D 2006, Ethnicity and race: making identities in a changing world, Sage Publications, New York. Graham, S, Taylor, A Z & Ho, A Y 2009, "Race and ethnicity in peer relations research," Handbook of peer interactions, relationships, and groups, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Hughes, D 2003, "Correlates of African American and Latino parents messages to children about ethnicity and race: a comparative study of racial socialization," American journal of community psychology vol. 31, no. 1-2, pp. 15-33. Iackson. B W 2012, Black identity development. 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