Race as a social construct: Is race real or a myth?

In many parts of the world, race is the separating factor in how people can live their lives. If you search up the word “Race” the definition is “a grouping of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into categories generally viewed as distinct by society.” The impact race has on the world is huge and many of us are used to it and we’ve become oblivious to it. In this essay, I will be discussing how race is not a category but a social construct. I will also discuss what is a social construct, what does race means, when did the idea of race begin, why is race being considered a social construct, and how does it affect the minds and lives of people.

According to Merriam-Webster the word social construct is identified as an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society. An example of a social construct would be a hospital. Since we all agree that a hospital is a hospital and not just a building we created a social construct. If the hospital was there before we were born, the idea of it being a hospital was created by people before you. In society, we accept social constructs as the norm and most of us don’t even consider the fact that most of the things we know are social constructs. Race is identified as a social construct, in that it was created by the human race and was widely accepted. I believe the idea of race being a social construct began when people started to realize the classification of races started to give a disadvantage to others. For example, people of African descent are historically proven to have had negative effects from race being a social construct. In the article “11 ways race isn’t real” by Jenee Desmond-Harris she quotes Barbara J. Fields who said “ “Americans of European descent invented race during the era of the American Revolution as a way of resolving the contradiction between a natural right to freedom and the fact of slavery,” This piece of evidence explains the idea that race as an idea didn’t begin till the mistreatment of African Americans or people with African descent. The mistreatment of African Americans began with slavery. Slavery began in the 1600s after white colonists realized all the Native Americans they forced to be slaves were dying off. White colonists began to go to Africa and kidnap Africans from their homes and forced them overseas to become their property. African American slaves suffered abuse and other disgusting things for hundreds of years while building everything we know now from the white house to our railroads. Our founding father Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.– That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” I always found this quote to be hypocritical, if all men were created equal why weren’t slaves counted? I wasn’t surprised when I found out the majority of our founding fathers were slave owners or like Jefferson had children with their slaves. Slavery was abolished on December 18, 1865, with the 13th Amendment. Slavery is watered-down in American history but it has a huge impact on why race is a social construct and how African Americans are treated. 

Race is a human-invented social construct. As proven earlier a social construct is an idea that was created by people like us and is widely accepted. Race is defined by physical aspects, for example, if you have a darker skin tone a person may automatically assume you are Black and if you have a paler skin tone a person may assume you are white. Race has been used negatively for hundreds of years with methods of oppression and segregation. There is also no genetic proof to prove the race of a person. In “Race and Racial identity Are Social Constructs” By Angela Onwuachi-Willig” states “Race is not biological. It is a social construct. There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks or all whites. Were race “real” in the genetic sense, racial classifications for individuals would remain constant across boundaries.” This piece of evidence shows that race isn’t genetically proven which makes it a social construct. 

Race as a social construct affects the lives and minds of people because you will see the world through a racial viewpoint. In society, one of the first things we notice about a person is their “race”. Race has become a big part of our daily lives we do it subconsciously. At the time we can see someone of a different “Race” and judge them off of biases that we’ve been taught for years. As a Black woman in the United States, I am often viewed as “loud”, “bossy”, “ghetto”, and “disrespectful”. That is wrong and hurtful but people of many different ethnicities are viewed like that because of their race. The article “It’s not something I can shake”: The Effect of Racial Stereotypes, Beauty Standards, and Sexual Racism on Interracial Attraction.” states “Systemic racist attitudes and negative depictions of people of color persist in the United States and are perpetuated by contemporary films, advertising, television news, newspapers, and other media outlets (Feagin and Elias 2013). Racial stereotypes found in the media can affect how people of color are perceived and treated by others (Sekayi 2003).” These stereotypes are carried out in the mainstream in ways we don’t realize, if you watch a movie with the actors being African African most times it will be a movie about slavery or if you watch a movie with Afro-Latinas the movie will show them as gang members. In the same article, Silvestrini stated “In a longitudinal study examining the relationship between television representations of racial minorities and Latino and Black Americans, Tukachinsky et al. (2017) found that negative media representations consistently reduced positive feelings of Latino and Black participants toward their own group.” This shows that the way different races are portrayed in society can affect the feelings a racial group may have about themselves. I believe these stereotypes are used to hurt and oppress people of color, as a society we need to stop carrying them out because they continue to hurt us. 

The idea of race has Created a division amongst groups for hundreds of years. We’ve seen this with the oppression of People of color and the segregation of African Americans in the United States. The article “Segregation in the United States” says “Segregation is the practice of requiring separate housing, education and other services for people of color. Segregation was made law several times in 18th and 19th-century America as some believed that Black and white people were incapable of coexisting.” When we think of segregation, we think of it as hundreds of years ago but it wasn’t. Even though we are not legally segregated, segregation based on race is shown in many aspects of today’s society. One way is the wealth gap, the wealth gap is the unequal distribution of assets among residents of the United States. Race as a social construct affects the number of money people of color make. The article “Disparities in Wealth by Race and Ethnicity in the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances” says “In the 2019 survey, White families have the highest level of both median and mean family wealth: $188,200 and $983,400, respectively (Figure 1). Black and Hispanic families have considerably less wealth than White families. Black families’ median and mean wealth is less than 15 percent that of White families, at $24,100 and $142,500, respectively.” In our society the color of your skin can affect the amount of money you make, a white man can get paid more for the same job as a black man or woman. The article “White male doctors earn 35 percent more than black male doctors” further explains the claim. For example, “White male physicians had an adjusted median income of $253,000 a year, compared to $188,000 a year for their black male peers. White female doctors earned about $163,000. Black female physicians were at the bottom, with an adjusted median annual income of about $153,000. While the gender gap in medicine had previously been known, the racial gap was startling.” The United States already suffers from a gender wage gap but for race to also be another factor on why Black or Latina women get paid less is upsetting and makes me feel like the system is purposely setting us up to fail. Another way segregation still occurs in the modern-day is by Red-lining. Red-lining is a discriminatory practice by which banks, insurance companies, etc., refuse or limit loans, mortgages, insurance, etc., within specific geographic areas, especially inner-city neighborhoods. Red-lining has been affecting many people of color for decades and still occurs today. In New York City, you can notice red-lining by driving through the White-Stone bridge there are two different sides of it. One side of the White-Stone bridge is a small predominately white neighborhood with million-dollar homes while the other side of the bridge is a predominately Black and Latino neighborhood which is considered the “ghetto.” The article “Redlining in a majority Black city?: mortgage lending and the racial composition of Detroit neighborhoods” by Robert Mark Silverman states “Most recently, a national study by the National Training and Information Center (NTIC) (2003) indicated that redlining based on race and social class remained a problem in American cities, in part, due to weaknesses in the quality of HMDA data and CRA enforcement.” Even though red-lining was made illegal with The Fair Housing Act of 1968. The fair housing act made it illegal to discriminate in the sale or rental of housing on the grounds of race, color, religion, or national origin. Even though red-lining and segregation are illegal in the united states it still occurs and it still impacts people of color. If race isn’t a social construct, why does is this still happening?

In conclusion, race is a social construct that affects the way people in society think and live. The meaning of social construct is that an idea that was created and is widely accepted. I believe that race is an example of an idea that was created up hundreds of years ago because of slavery and has been accepted. The idea of race impacts our lives daily and we don’t even notice from red-lining, how we think about ourselves, and the amount of money we make. As a Black woman in America, it is hard to find comfort in a country where a system is built to set you up for failure. It makes it hard to want to succeed in ways I know I can, but if people begin to acknowledge how race is a social construct and people of color are at a disadvantage we can begin to move forward and make progress as a society. If we continue to live our lives with race as a social construct it will continue to impact people in ways that it shouldn’t. 

Works Cited

 Onwuachi-Willig,, Angela. “Race and Racial Identity Are Social Constructs.” The New York Times, The New York Times, www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs. 

History.com Editors. “Segregation in the United States.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 28 Nov. 2018, www.history.com/topics/black-history/segregation-united-states. 

Desmond-Harris, Jenée. “11 Ways Race Isn’t Real.” Vox, Vox, 10 Oct. 2014, www.vox.com/2014/10/10/6943461/race-social-construct-origins-census. 

Jennifer Adaeze Okwerekwu June 7, et al. “White Male Doctors Earn Far More than Their Peers.” STAT, 19 Jan. 2017, https://www.statnews.com/2016/06/07/physician-pay-gap/.

Silvestrini, Molly. “‘It’s not something I can shake’: The Effect of Racial Stereotypes, Beauty Standards, and Sexual Racism on Interracial Attraction.” Sexuality and Culture, vol. 24, no. 1, Feb. 2020, pp. 305+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A610601064/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=45a59e87. Accessed 3 Nov. 2021.

Silverman, Robert Mark. “Redlining in a majority Black city?: mortgage lending and the racial composition of Detroit neighborhoods.” The Western Journal of Black Studies, vol. 29, no. 1, spring 2005, pp. 531+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A151265387/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=cf95c5a9. Accessed 3 Nov. 2021.

“Disparities in Wealth by Race and Ethnicity in the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances.” The Fed – Disparities in Wealth by Race and Ethnicity in the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances, https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/disparities-in-wealth-by-race-and-ethnicity-in-the-2019-survey-of-consumer-finances-20200928.htm.