Thursday, September 9, 2010
Social Constructs of Race
The article "White By Law" immediately reminded me of Ralph Ellison's ideas on the social confines of race. Lopez shows through documented court cases in American history that race is defined by society; not science, not ethnic origins, but society. Ellison wrote of how true personal identity is impossible because society will always identify you based on race. The two concepts are interrelated. History shows that people were denied citizenship, not because they were not ideologically American, but because of race. Ellison's famous novel Invisible Man tells of a man who feels no one can "see" who he is because people immediately judge him on race. The court cases are from the 19th century to mid 20th century. Invisible Man is mid 20th century. It makes me think about how today in the 21st century, society can still control who we are based on how we look. Will this stigma ever be truly gone? Probably not.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I like the idea of connecting Ian haney Lopez' White By Law to Invisble Man. You should think about putting a link into the Amazon.com or other version of the Ellison book.
ReplyDeleteI like your last line. I agree with you that racial profiling will probably never stop, because we are so persuaded by what the group thinks. It is difficult to stand up for what you believe in sometimes. I think it is pretty impressive that many gay people can do that even though they will get so much backlash from society.
ReplyDelete