This week in class we discussed race, focusing on categorizing race, racism, and the social construction of race. Sal showed us a group of objects and asked us to categorize them in groups; some objects didn't fit into a definite group and some objects overlapped into different groups. These objects represented race and it showed us that it is nearly impossible to define everyone's race, especially when someone is a mix of different races. Also, in class we discussed how society and your surroundings affect your race. My roommate next year is Caucasian, African American, Chinese, and Native American but since a large population of people living by her are black, she classifies herself as African American.
We discussed implicit and explicit racism, explicit being obvious and implicit being hidden. There are some online games/tests that are supposed to determine your implicit racism. In AP Psychology, we played a game where we matched races and words very quickly, to measure our implicit racism; the more you associate the darker race with negative words, the more racist you may be. We also played a game where either a black person or a white person appears on the screen with an object in their hand and, as quick as possible, you have to shoot them if you think the object in their hand is a gun. The more times you choose to shoot a black person with an object other than a gun, the more racist you may be against blacks.
One of my favorite youtube videos is a video regarding interracial dating and biracial people. He compares different races to M&M's and basically asks "If we don't discriminate against the M&M's we eat, why should we discriminate against others?"
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