Why is race constructed

The occasional sensational stories in the " Black and White Twins: Born a minute apart" vein are really just overblown reports on siblings who, because of normal genetic variations, have different complexions. That the public feels empowered to declare that two infants born to the same mother and father are actually different races says a lot about how many people give racial identity more credit for being objective than it deserves.

But here's what's even more revealing: adult siblings who share the same parents are free to choose different racial identities when they fill out the Census or otherwise decide how to identify. One might be "black" while the other chooses "black, white, and Asian.

Between the years and , millions of people who said they were of Hispanic origin remember, that's currently an ethnicity option, not a race option changed their census selection for race from "some other race" to "white.

There are stories of people who decide to "come out" as black, shedding, or sometimes, still holding onto, their previous "white" or "Latino" identities.

They're not the only ones in this country who've made adjustments to their racial identities. There are stories of people who decide to "come out" as black , shedding, or sometimes, still holding onto, their previous "white" or "Latino" identities. Maybe these individuals make the switch because they learned something about their parents' background. Or maybe it's because they've just begun to think about identity differently. You'll of course raise fewer eyebrows if your appearance is one most associate with your new chosen race and, if you are a person of color, no declaration on your part will preclude you from experiencing prejudice , but if you decide to check a new box, it really doesn't have to make sense to anyone but you.

Last year, NPR reported on a tiny town in the Appalachian foothills of Ohio, where, for the past years, people have called themselves African-American despite the fact that many would say they appear to be white.

Check out the pictures here. This is an extreme case, in which " racial lines have been blurred to invisibility " among an entire community.

But the idea that someone might look one way and identify another way — or that they might be really hard to place in a racial category — is not unfamiliar. It's why there was a public debate about whether MSNBC's Karen Finney could say she was black, and why people are curious about whether actress Rosario Dawson declares herself black, Latina, or both. These are individual and relatively unpredictable decisions because there's nothing about the concept of race that requires more of them.

A Pew Research Center poll, the results of which were published this year, revealed that 52 percent of Americans said Barack Obama was of "mixed race," while 27 percent called him "black.

A DNA test can give you information about where your ancestors came from. That's not the same as telling you what your race is. The constant changes to whether people from various parts of Europe are "white" at any given time in United States history — including the one that might change with the next Census — are proof of that. And while we're on the topic of science, Dorothy Roberts , the author of Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century explains that when the medical community links race to health outcomes, it's really just using race as a proxy for other factors such as where your ancestors came from, or what social inequalities people who have been grouped similarly to you tend to face.

Here's how she put it in one interview:. There are studies to explain racial divisions in health that are actually caused by social inequalities. Yet you have researchers studying high blood pressure, asthma among blacks, etc. However, research shows these [illnesses] are the effects of racial inequality and the stress of racial inequality In an article published today Feb.

They've called on the U. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to put together a panel of experts across the biological and social sciences to come up with ways for researchers to shift away from the racial concept in genetics research. Yudell said that modern genetics research is operating in a paradox, which is that race is understood to be a useful tool to elucidate human genetic diversity, but on the other hand, race is also understood to be a poorly defined marker of that diversity and an imprecise proxy for the relationship between ancestry and genetics.

In one example that demonstrated genetic differences were not fixed along racial lines, the full genomes of James Watson and Craig Venter , two famous American scientists of European ancestry, were compared to that of a Korean scientist , Seong-Jin Kim.

It turned out that Watson who, ironically, became ostracized in the scientific community after making racist remarks and Venter shared fewer variations in their genetic sequences than they each shared with Kim. Assumptions about genetic differences between people of different races have had obvious social and historical repercussions, and they still threaten to fuel racist beliefs.

That was apparent two years ago, when several scientists bristled at the inclusion of their research in Nicholas Wade's controversial book, "A Troublesome Inheritance" Penguin Press, , which proposed that genetic selection has given rise to distinct behaviors among different populations.

In a letter to The New York Times , five researchers wrote that "Wade juxtaposes an incomplete and inaccurate account of our research on human genetic differences with speculation that recent natural selection has led to worldwide differences in IQ test results, political institutions and economic development.

The authors of the new Science article noted that racial assumptions could also be particularly dangerous in a medical setting. This paradox, where race is both not biologically real and yet incredibly socially and politically real , is an unusual challenge for the health care system. We must de-emphasize race in how we provide health care, classify our patients, and assign causality, while increasing our emphasis on race in how structural and institutional racism lead to health inequities.

So, I hope this answers your question, doctor! Email: weare centerforhealthprogress. Pueblo, Colorado Email: weare centerforhealthprogress. American Anthropological Association states that "the 'racial' worldview was invented to assign some groups to perpetual low status, while others were permitted access to privilege, power, and wealth. The tragedy in the United States has been that the policies and practices stemming from this worldview succeeded all too well in constructing unequal populations among Europeans, Native Americans, and peoples of African descent.

Each of the major groupings into which humankind is considered in various theories or contexts to be divided on the basis of physical characteristics or shared ancestry. What is Racial identity? Understanding how our identities and experiences have been shaped by race is vital. We are all awarded certain privileges and or disadvantages because of our race whether or not we are conscious of it.

Race matters. Race matters … because of persistent racial inequality in society - inequality that cannot be ignored. Developmental models of racial identity Many sociologists and psychologists have identified that there are similar patterns every individual goes through when recognizing their racial identity.

Think of these categories of Racial Identity Development [PDF] as stations along a journey of the continual evolution of your racial identity. Your personal experiences, family, community, workplaces, the aging process, and political and social events — all play a role in understanding our own racial identity. During this process, people move between a desire to "fit in" to dominant norms, to a questioning of one's own identity and that of others.

It includes feelings of confusion and often introspection, as well as moments of celebration of self and others. You may begin at any point on this chart and move in any direction — sometimes on the same day!