The man in the mirror

Biologically race does not exist. Race is a socially constructed system that has been created by societies to classify people into different categories based on physical traits; especially skin color. A Different Mirror by Ronald T. Takaki and the first episode of Race: The power of Illusion show examples of how race has been created throughout the years of our existence and how this shapes our views in society. Our society makes us believe that race exists and that this is the way people should be separated into groups to simply justify inequality among us. Historically, I feel that race was created to just keep the white population in power. The white European and later on white American colonized places in the world where indigenoius people lived. In the case of the Native Americans who once were the ligitimate habitants of this country; their land and rights were stripped away from them with the justification of the Manifest Destiny. The new settlers had no mercy and did not respect the natives' way of living. They came to this land claiming new territory as theirs by the most atrocious means, yet the settlers had the audacity to call the natives "savages".This idea of racism has been going on for hundreds of years and it is sad that racism it is still induced in us today. I remember one I read something about Morgan Freeman and something that he said still intreagues me today. He said something like:" racism still exists today because we believe it exists". I also think of this term "race" as an actual race between people of different backgrounds and status in society based on skin color. We are constantly competing to be the best and in reality no "race" is better than any other. If our DNAs are so similar to that of a person in Africa it means something. This means that scientifically we all come from the same background and for people to want to discard this fact it is just absurd. Black people in most parts of the world are seen as "bad" and I never really understood why. Why is society always trying to put down one group that we all have ancestry to? African slaves were brought to different regions of the world unwillingly in the worst conditions for white European supremacy to make a profit and expand globaly. Like it was mentioned in the reading, they were brought to other places as indenture servants, but we don't exactly know when the employers decided to make them slaves. Either way, blacks were never in best conditions. Refering back to the video, I believe that it is true that scientists are influenced by the time and place they live in. For example the naturalist Carolus Linnaeus laid the foundation to categorize four different types of homo sepiens (Eurpeanus, Americanus, Asiaticus and Africanus). This idea was constructed in the seventeen hundreds which served as a model for the classification of races during the ages of emperialism and colonialism always placing the African people as a minority.I sometimes feel like people from different backgrounds are labeled as something that they are not, therefor stereotypes and prejudice develops against a certain group, which leads to second deviance. I believe that most people are capable of doing what they envision for themselves, but because of the way that society is constructed, it prevents people from doing so. Like I mentioned before, there are obstacles that the race in power creates so that they can keep their power and others never climb the ladder to be in their level.