Talking About Race: Moving Toward a Transformative Dialogue
Race presentation
1. What is Race?:
Definitions, Classifications and
Categories
INTRODUCTION TO ETHNIC STUDIES
S E P T E M B E R 1 0 TH, 2 0 1 2
2. What did you say?
“Race..classifies individuals into a group/population based upon their
pigmentation, heritage, appearance and so on.”
“The definition of race is ethnicity, and the definition of ethnicity is traits,
background, allegiance, or association”.
“Race is where people originally originated from”.
“The skin color and facial structure of a person is a universal method used
to racially categorize others”.
“Race, in the way we know it, is socially constructed”.
“Sometimes people try to identify others races by the way they look, talk or
their physical characteristics. But that is not always an accurate method of
figuring things out.”
4. Ethnicity
Social Construction
Group Characteristics
1. Shared origins/history
2. Cultural aspects
Shared identity
Defined internally
Believed to be fluid
6. Example: Elena‟s Peer Group*
Race: Asian
Ethnicity: Chinese, Race: White
English Ethnicity: Jewish
Nationality: Chinese, Nationality: American
American
Race: Latina/?
Ethnicity: Mexican
Race: White
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Greek,
American
Nationality: American
*Using the definitions from Cornell and Hartmann, these may change depending whose
definitions you will use.
7. Overlaps
Points of identification
Shared origins
Categories move over time
Race, ethnicity as a basis for nationalism
9. The Role of Power
Heavy with meaning
Who gets to define?
Origin of terms
Self-identification
Who is fluid?
10. Exercise: Race, Ethnicity and Nationality in Pop
Culture
Buzzfeed.com (a popular pop-culture website)
posted a list of 34 celebrities that you would never
guess had „mixed-heritages‟.
When looking at these keep in mind the definitions about
race, ethnicity and nationality that we are looking at.
11. Buzzfeed: 34 Celebrities You Would Never Guess
Had a Mixed-Heritage
Website „Racialicious‟ (a website that examines how race and pop culture intersect) makes some
interesting points about this list.
1. You can spot a person with brown ancenstory