Journal on “Race: The Power of an Illusion”, Reaction Paper Example

The documentary “Race: The Power of an Illusion” originally aired on PBS as a three part series sponsored by the Ford Foundation in an effort to alleviate the common misconceptions people have regarding race. Each documentary in the series is referred to as a “chapter” and each chapter serves a different purpose; chapter one is entitled “The Difference Between Us” and examines the science behind why people are grouped into different categories, chapter two is entitled “The Story We Tell” and shows us the history of race in the United States and provides us the social reasons behind why we feel the need to group people based on physical characteristics, and chapter three entitled “The House We Live In” which attempts to provide a definition to race according to principles of economics, politics, and culture.

Ultimately the film series demonstrates that the concept of “race” is one that is completely made by humans and little differences really exist between us. According to biology, our genetics are 99% similar. The remaining 1% accounts for way more than skin color and other physical features; it includes all the things that make humans unique such as personality, intelligence, etc., which have nothing to do with the race we are. Ultimately, race was a constructed idea that early people used to justify the phenomenon of different skin colors. Before there was widespread means of communication and travel, people of different ethnicities rarely encountered each other and thought that their own skin color was normal and that of others was strange. However, we have come a long way and know that people of different races aren’t different from ourselves. As such, it would be beneficial to stop judging others on this basis.