Monday, December 2, 2013

Lesson 9: Race and Ethnicity

"Sociologists see race and ethnicity as social constructions because they are not rooted in biological differences, they change over time, and they never have firm boundaries."


These two people are obviously different races, you can tell just by the way they look because race is based on real or perceived biological differences between people. 



These two men are not only a different race, but a different ethnicity as well. Ethnicity is based on common language, religion, nationality, or another cultural factor. You may not know which ethnicity the people in this photo are, but you can tell that they are from different races because race is physical while ethnicity can be shown or not based on a personal preference. 

Symbolic ethnicity is an ethnic identity that is only relevant on specific occasions. May day in Hawai'i is a traditional holiday where people dance hula, give each other lei's, and eat ono local grindz. Even if you aren't Hawaiian by race, everyone embraces the Hawaiian ethnicity. 


Racial assimilation is where the racial minority group intermarries into the dominant group, and eventually gets absorbed. In Hawaii the dominant racial group is Asian, and the minority is white. Through racial assimilation a whole new race has been created called "hapa"; hapa is simply half asian half "white".  Above is an asian Husband, with a white Wife, and their hapa children.  


In Peter Balakians book Black Dog of Fate, he speaks a great deal of the armenian genocide and how it affected his family. Genocide is the deliberate killing of a large group  of people based on race, ethnicity, or geographic location. 




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