To understand the "race is a social construct" thing, it's helpful to (1) consider border cases and ambiguities and (2) consider history
1. Breaks down especially with the existence of mixed race people. Did you know that there was a term for Americans born with 7 European great grandparents and 1 black one? Many of those were born into slavery and treated horribly for being black.
Which touches on 2... But also, the Irish were not considered white. I've seen horribly racist British illustrations of the 19th century comparing Irish people to Africans. In that century in the United States, Italian and eastern European immigrants were also not considered white.
When you consider these ridiculous corner cases, and how their perceptions have changed over time, it makes you aware that the categorization itself isn't really based on logic and reason or facts, even when generalizations hold up "better". Yes, for the most stereotypically appearing people, we'll probably correctly guess their ancestry a lot of the time based on things like appearances. But it falls apart pretty quickly. You don't need to get into extreme outlier cases as above for you to miss something when you treat racial categories as unambiguous facts.
Why do people bring this up then, any time race is mentioned? It's such a trivial point to make, it doesn't add anything.
Ok, so "black" or "White" are not absolutely clear labels that we can use to describe every single person ever. No shit... Still, Morgan Freeman is black and Margot Robbie is White, and I'm White because both my parents are White, and if there's a serial killer roaming the streets then knowing if he's "black" or "White" is very useful information so I know what to be on the lookout for, etc.
It's like those insufferable people who can't wait to point out that "A tomato is actually a fruit!" any time it comes up in conversation. Ok, so what? "Race is a social construct!" Ok, so what?
A social construct or construction is the meaning, notion, or connotation placed on an object or event by a society, and adopted by that society with respect to how they view or deal with the object or event.[8]
The social construction of target populations refers to the cultural characterizations or popular images of the persons or groups whose behavior and well-being are affected by public policy.[9]
Social constructionism posits that the meanings of phenomena do not have an independent foundation outside the mental and linguistic representation that people develop about them throughout their history, and which becomes their shared reality.[10] From a linguistic viewpoint, social constructionism centres meaning as an internal reference within language (words refer to words, definitions to other definitions) rather than to an external reality.
asveikau|1 year ago
1. Breaks down especially with the existence of mixed race people. Did you know that there was a term for Americans born with 7 European great grandparents and 1 black one? Many of those were born into slavery and treated horribly for being black.
Which touches on 2... But also, the Irish were not considered white. I've seen horribly racist British illustrations of the 19th century comparing Irish people to Africans. In that century in the United States, Italian and eastern European immigrants were also not considered white.
When you consider these ridiculous corner cases, and how their perceptions have changed over time, it makes you aware that the categorization itself isn't really based on logic and reason or facts, even when generalizations hold up "better". Yes, for the most stereotypically appearing people, we'll probably correctly guess their ancestry a lot of the time based on things like appearances. But it falls apart pretty quickly. You don't need to get into extreme outlier cases as above for you to miss something when you treat racial categories as unambiguous facts.
RonaldDump|1 year ago
Ok, so "black" or "White" are not absolutely clear labels that we can use to describe every single person ever. No shit... Still, Morgan Freeman is black and Margot Robbie is White, and I'm White because both my parents are White, and if there's a serial killer roaming the streets then knowing if he's "black" or "White" is very useful information so I know what to be on the lookout for, etc.
It's like those insufferable people who can't wait to point out that "A tomato is actually a fruit!" any time it comes up in conversation. Ok, so what? "Race is a social construct!" Ok, so what?
krapp|1 year ago
From Wikipedia[0]:
And specifically regarding race being a social construct: https://archive.is/g5utD>Are dog breeds a 'social construct'?
>Are species a 'social construct'?
Species are a social construct[1]. Dog breeds are not a social construct[2]. However, human races are not equivalent to dog breeds[3].
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructionism
[1]https://old.reddit.com/r/AskSocialScience/comments/ad58x6/is...
[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/biology/comments/rfapt7/are_dog_bre...
[3]https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.118...