Race as Artificial Identity, Essay Example

The idea that an individual is disposed toward certain behaviors, beliefs, or personality characteristics based purely on criteria of race and ethnicity is specious. Although many people express a belief that race is a determinant factor in individual behaviors, capacities, and aptitudes, the reality of race is that it fails to impact individuality at any meaningful level. In other words, members of a particular race are as likely to be different from one another, even at a genetic level, as they are to be different from members of another race. In this regard, it would seem that race is merely an artificial construct based on a marginal physical element, such as skin color, but in actuality supported more fully by cultural conditioning. Obviously, the idea that race is a convention of cultural construction rather than an intrinsic physical characteristics goes against many widespread beliefs and common convictions.

The evidence that race is a social construct is not only based in science, but in the fact that political and social consequences of racial discrimination indicate potential motives for the social engineering of race identity and stereotyping. One of the most obvious consequences of racial discrimination and stereotyping is to pit one segment of the populace against another. in other words, if a society, such as American society, is based on oligarchical principles, then creating an environment where one segment of the working populace is in conflict with another, serves to distract both segments of the working population from the fact that they are being exploited by a ruling class. the idea of race is also an important construct for preserving the existing social castes in any given society. For example, the idea of race has frequently played into the justification for human slavery that has been practiced throughout history in many nations around the world. Race as a social construct must be understood as a tool that helps to enable mass manipulation and to preserve the unjust division of wealth that exists among both individuals and nations all around the globe.