Racism and Stereotypes 2 (Science)

This week I learned a lot about how others in class experienced discrimination and how race is an illusion. Many people gave their personal reports this week. I enjoyed hearing about everyone's history and how they had different experiences with discrimination. I was surprised with some of the discrimination some people still face today based on their skin color and he they look. One thing that stood out to me was when someone said that they were having trouble getting a credit card because they were black. This was surprising to me because I would have thought that discrimination against black people had been long gone. When I heard this, I thought, "Really! This still happens". Other than the really sad experiences that people shared, I found the personal reports to be fascinating.

After watching the movie "Race, The Power of an Illusion" I felt that race was indeed, an illusion. It is manmade, just like all the machines, computers and cars everyone uses. I learned in my high school biology class that everyone is genetically different. The probability that two people on Earth are 100% genetically the same is about 1 in a trillion. I do not remember if it was more or less than that, but I do remember that it was around or very close to a trillion. If people used biology as an excuse or evidence for race, then everyone would need to be placed in  their own unique race category. Another reason why race is an illusion is because it said that genetically, "Humans are the most similar". Humans think that they are different from each other only because they can distinguish between each other through looks, only what they can see. However, when it comes to things like pinto beans or fruit flies, humans think they all look the same. This is because things like fruit flies are too small for humans to closely observe with the eye. Things like pinto beans have huge amounts of variation in the different spot pattern, size and shape. Humans just do not take time to examine these things.

Humans also like to categorize things. This may be another reason why there is an idea of "race". People love to group things, to put everything into a little category so that things can be organized. This was probably how the idea of "race" developed. One person decided that he/she was bored and started to make up racial categories for people, then "poof" race was developed. People thought that since they were so different from each other, they had to organize different people into different categories, this became race. Once race was established, people started to dislike on another, or judge people based on their race. From that came the stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. I think that the people who came up with "race" just wanted to hate on people.

It was very interesting to see that the Mitochondrial DNA from a white person could be exactly the same as Mitochondrial DNA from a person in Africa. Even though everyone is genetically different, the different could only be a single letter in the sequence of DNA. DNA is made up of a double helix of sugar and phosphate with the bases Guanine, Adenine, Cytosine, and Thymine. This is the G, A, C, and T of DNA. A sequence of DNA for skin color in one person could be GATTCGATGGCCCGTAT, while it could be GATTCGGTGGCCCGTAT in another person. The only thing different in the second sequence was that the seventh letter of the first sequence was replaced with a G. A simple change like that could have a significant impact of the look of a person. The first person's skin might be white, but a simple change in the sequence might turn the second person's skin brown. This is why some people from different parts of the world have very similar DNA sequences. This explains why everyone is different genetically, but also very closely related.

One thing about humans that is funny to me is how a lot of people make fun of people because of their skin color. If a white person was living near the Sahara Desert, he/she would die of skin cancer. Your skin would need to be very dark to block out the UV rays. Again, if a black person was living in Iceland he/she would either freeze to death, or die from the lack of vitamin D. People make up stereotypes and discriminate against people because they have adapted to the place they live. If they did not adapt they would be dead. People are trying to survive, what is so funny about that. This was probably how the stereotypes, black people do not like the cold and white people get sunburned easily came to be. They are probably true. 

Racism and Stereotypes 1

I haven't blogged for a long time. I wrote this for my Psychology of Minority Groups class. I thought , why not put it up on my blog.

In class this week I learned that there were many stereotypes that could be applied to people of different color. There were many more stereotypes that the class did not even think of. When we were making a list of stereotypes for people of different color, I realized that many of the stereotypes under one column could also be applied to another column. For example, under the column for black, it said “Have lots of flow and can dance very well”. I thought about it and realized that this could also be applied to the brown, yellow, and even the red column. There were many stereotypes like this, which made me question why this stereotype was only applied to the black column. I think most of these stereotypes were developed when one ethnic group saw that another ethnic group was doing something different or looked different. This may be because of ethnocentrism. Many people might have thought their ethnic group was at the center of all others. If many ethnic groups from different parts of the world thought their ethnic group was the best, it would result in prejudices, conflict, and ultimately, stereotypes.
          I also noticed that some of the stereotypes the class came up with were very specific and only applied to one column. I noticed that it said, "Own Casinos" under the red column. Some of the stereotypes that were very specific were probably true. Not all red people have Casinos, but a small group of them do. I don't know a lot about other countries and if they have casinos or not, but I know that in the U.S. Native Americans are the only people allowed to have casinos. Another reason why some stereotypes were specific might be because they applied to a large percentage of the population. For example, "White people can't dance" was under the white column. There are many white people that can dance very well, but a large percentage of white people probably cannot dance. This might have caused people to make assumptions and judge people based on their color. After a period of time, this stereotype developed and people started to use it directly toward white people. This stereotype did not appear in any other of the columns not because all black, brown, yellow, and red people can dance, but because a large percentage of those people could dance, and a low percentage of them could not. I am Chinese, and I cannot dance, but there are not any stereotypes targeted against me because there are many more yellow people that can dance. This shows that many stereotypes are specific to one ethnic group because they are, in part, true.
            Some of the stereotypes the class came up with didn't make much sense to me. One of them was, “Black people like Kool-Aid and watermelon.” This one stood out to me because it seemed like it applied mostly to black people in America. There are a lot more black people in Africa, than there are in America. The people in Africa probably don't even know what Kool-Aid is. Africa is the second most populous nation in the world with almost a billion people living there. Many of those people have never tasted watermelon. I think this stereotype of black people liking Kool-Aid and watermelon is not very accurate. This is similar to a scientist looking at how tall ten people are to get an average. This would be a very small sample size to look at. This is what people are doing when they start making up stereotypes. They only look at what is in front of them, they do not dig deeper and find out more about something that is foreign to them. Another stereotype that did not make much sense to me was, “Asian people can’t drive”. This did not make much sense to me because, Asia is the biggest continent on Earth and to say that Asian people can’t drive seems a bit strange. In addition, most of the cars in the U.S. were developed in Asian countries like Japan and Korea. So basically, millions of people in the U.S. are driving cars made by people who cannot drive. It sounds like a contradiction to me and does not make sense. Although there were many stereotypes that might have had some truth in them, there were also many that did not many any sense at all.

So far, I think this class is great. I love the different conversations we have, and how it can be funny and

interesting and still relate to the subject of the class. This class is by far, the best college class (out of three) that I’ve taken so far.