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Race and Racism

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Submitted By m10hurtado
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Michael Hurtado 9/15/11
Critique on Anthropology and Race, Ch. 5
Discarding Race, Dealing with Racism Race and racism has been a very controversial and confusing subject for many decades. Although is seems to have made progress over the last couple of decades, it really has not but subsumed to a more dormant topic in education. After reading the fifth chapter of Anthropology and Race by Eugenia Shanklin, I have realized the complexity of the word race and the many descriptions, meanings, and methods used to define this word. As long as there are different races, racism will continue to be a part of society. I somewhat understand as to why this topic is rarely discussed and not properly taught in education systems. Also how the different approaches anthropologists have tried to explain race and racism as either a cultural or scientific method. In today’s society, race is not discussed in the classrooms of education. As time goes on the importance of explaining, in detail, what race really is, does not seem necessary because the nation’s values state that everyone is equal, which discards the idea of race. Race is the classification of people into group in the world, due to cultural, physical, geographical, and biological aspects; or so we like to believe it. As described in Anthropology and Race, Anthropologists believe that when discussing the topic of race, people automatically divide themselves into groups and then believe and defend these groups. Why is this so automatic for human to do? It is believed that everyone has a sense of ethnocentrism that could be impacted from their upbringing which will ultimately make them associate and categorizes themselves into groups. Many believe that the term race should be discarded for the simple fact that is naturally divides human society. The method of race not only divides people but makes them turn

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