Nina Wentt DB 4

Starting with the film on Kanopy, John Cambell utilized the theory that “black people were a separate species in comparison to white men therefore backing his claims for the justification of slavery. This also overlapped with Aggasiz study on human skull size in relation to intelligence and racial progression (I believe he used indigenous American skulls as a reference?). He believed the social constructs of race was found to be scientifically supported based on skull capacity. In the short video, various participants from different Asian backgrounds expressed the adversities they experienced personally or witnessed through their parents. One participant expressed his first experience with racism was age 6 at a sandbox with a girl telling him his skin looked like poop (a common experience many black and brown people could possibly relate to) and then another girl expressed how she feared “10 year old white boys”. Race as a social construct was often discussed as a lesson rather than a possible occurrence. Race is also front for Americans (specifically Asian-Americans) because they are identified by phenotype before citizenship. This is a way to establish clear racial hierarchies I feel.  In Dhingra and Rodriguez, there was a line that said “Race is such a significant way of organizing and categorizing people in American society that we are often confounded when we encounter a person whose race we cannot immediately make sense of.” Although there are clear differences in skin color hair texture and height, a “race” does not have a common genetic gene. Ideas of race can be traced back to colonial times as a easier way to distinguish people from those who were colonized. With the information I have watched and read, race is a social construction because it is an institution set in place to intentionally segregate and categorize human beings based on a colonial phenotype system. Its goal was to establish social and political dominance over those groups (usually considered minority groups) deemed inferior.

Reading these reminds me always that although other institutions infringing on human rights like how slavery predates racism, it is racial constructs ultimately responsible for systems enforced in place that uses a divide to ensure systematic power. Anytime I read or watch something related to these constructs it just makes me feel very insecure as a minority (and as a woman since gender constructs were also discussed in the reading). Then I sort of reflect on all of the events that have been unfolding. Like these concepts seem so archaic and should have been abolished but they aren’t. This always confuses me that we can assume the race of someone by looking at them. Or even assume that one race is better or smarter or genetically superior. Like most people don’t. believe in flying saucers or loch ness but believe black people are a different species than white people and the size of ones skull is justification for the enslavement of various groups of people/colonialization!? So much sabotage of human progress because of some doctor studying skulls and others going on a missionary trip discovering land that was never theirs to pillage in the first place. These things always put me in disbelief.