“As long as our civilization keeps trundling along generally forwards, then there is the
possibility of a future where ethnicity is merely an interesting badge, not a uniform you
can’t take off.”- David Mitchell
Since the establishment of the United States, the desire to define a person’s
“uniform” has been an integral part of our society. Defining someone based on their
phenotype and shared ancestral lineage has helped us establish legislative policies,
study socioeconomics, observe population shifts, and help establish social programs
tasked with creating equity. The problem with these definitions, however, is not just in
the flexibility of the definition, but in their practice, which has also lead our society to
discriminatory practices. By defining a group of people, we were able to also define
outsiders and exclude them into “us” versus “them”. These definitions become dictated
by an irrelevant set of societal standards, developed through decades of oppression
and dismissive categorization. These negative and oppressive standards have thus
created a negative and suppressive measuring stick by which we not only classify
people but by which we determine what advantages they will be given throughout their
lives.
The study of human beings dates back thousands of years, with standard
definitions for the words ethnicity and race shifting through interpretations and
civilizations. By the 20th century, the terms ethnicity and race and developed a
subjective meaning as a way for defining ourselves and others, though, it should be
noted that both the terms race and ethnicity continue to be redefined through changing
trends in our society. In the early 19th century German Sociologist Max Weber was the
first to clearly define ethnicity. In his work Economy and Society, Weber defined ethnicity
as “those human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common decent
because of similarities of physical type or customs or both, or because memories of
colonization and migration… it does not matter whether or not an objective blood
relationship exists.” (Cornell, 17) Thus, Weber defined ethnicity as a belief of shared
culture rather than a biological marker of shared culture. The idea of ethnicity, therefore,
can be self-identified and helps define a group’s sense of peoplehood.
Race, much like ethnicity, is continually being redefined through changing needs
throughout society. Race, however, can be better defined using biological markers.
Race is defined by differences in phenotype and while many Biologists, Physical
anthropologists, and other students of the human physiology use biological markers to
define race, they argue over how many races there are (Cornell, 21). Even through the
use of biological markers to define race, there is a large spectrum of people and where
to cut off each race remains a great debate. Due to this, race too has become a socially
constructed classification where in people judge what physical features determine race,
at which points in the spectrum of physical features do we determine a “cut-off” point,
what races are given privilege, and the stereotypes which we apply to each of these
racial groups. We continue to define groups by their physical differences. The
importances of what physical differences define a race have also been decided in the
platform of public opinion vis-a-vie media bias, social interactions, and preconceived
stereotypes. Thus, race is assigned by society while ethnicity is generally self-identified.
Through “interpretation, representation, or exploration of racial identities and
meaning” we make an effort “to organize and distribute resources (economic, political,
and cultural) along particular racial lines” through both positive and negative racial
projects (Omi and Winant, 125). Racial projects occur on both micro and macro levels.
On a macro level, the American government has used racial projects to distribute
assistances to those racial groups that have been defined as needy. On a micro level,
we as members of society define our racial projects through our daily interactions with
others. It is important to ensure that all of these interactions, however, are occurring on
voluntary and enjoyable circumstances to not only facilitate in developing positive self-
identification, but also in helping promote positive images of these races. These macro
and micro racial projects share a commonality in that they help either perpetuate or
alleviate the maintained power of a racial class.
Race is particularly important in American Society and has become the platform
