Question 2

Before reading this chapter I was unaware of the "one drop rule" involving race in early America. I have taken several history courses, but this was knew knowledge to me. This really puts the concept of race into perspective and has me asking myself even more, what is race? I guess my first attempt to explain it would be that it's a way that people try to classify each other based on certain characteristics. As we learned, these characteristics are not always physical and are sometimes based on knowledge of, or presumed ancestry. To be honest, I would have to say race is complicated. It's one of those concepts that can have my mind going for quite awhile and it can sometimes bring frustration when we are faced with having to disclose our race for different reasons.There is a movie called The Human Stain starring Anthony Hopkins that highlightes a particular man's experience with race, and how what others thought they saw was not really the case. Society saw him as a white man so he was able to classify himself as white, and as the movie goes on we discover that he has kept a secret all of his career about his race; he is a black man. These are the very reasons that race can be complicated. I don't think race is always helpful because it creates barriers to the very things that people complain about (with good reason) and want to change in our society. If we agree that we want each other to stop discriminating based on characteristics we can't change, then why should we go around wearing labels all the time? I know it sounds much easier than it probably is, and there are benefits to people knowing about their ancestry, but in regard to our pursuit of educations, career, etc, maybe we should allow people to check the boxes that they honestly feel apply to them. I feel that the worst part about the boxes is that people feel forced to check things that don't apply to them. The worst box of all is "other" because it makes it seem as though a person who is multiracial is not a part of our society, and causes some people to pick one of their races over the other simply to avoid this box. I found an article where some people share their personal experiences with race and the Census in case anyone is interested. USA Today Article/Race