Americans Against Racial Classification
Americans Against Racial Classification
THE ABSURDITY OF RACIAL CLASSIFICATION
The unwanted corollary of slotting people by race is that such officially sanctioned classifications may actually worsen racial strife. "It is not 'race' but a practice of racial classification that bedevils the society," writes Yehudi Webster, an American sociologist at California State University, Los Angeles, and the author of The Radicalization of America. The use of racial statistics, he and others have argued, creates a reality of racial divisions, which then require solutions, such as busing, affirmative action, and multicultural education, all of which are bound to fail, because they heighten the racial awareness that leads to contention. Webster believes that adding a "multiracial" box to the Native American, Asian-Pacific, black, and white racial options - and Hispanic ethnic option - in the racial self-identification section of the U.S. census, as some advocate, would be "another leap into absurdity," because it reinforces the concept of race. "in a way, it's a continuation of the one-drop principle. Anybody can say, 'I've got one drop of something - I must be multiracial.' It may finally convince Americans of the absurdity of racial classification."
Read the AAA statement on 'race!'CLICK HERE!!
--But if you only consider that the country
is not Black and White but just good or bad folks, then mabey you could understand that
this is the MAJORITY of our country that lives like this, and that perpetuating
SEPARATISM
SEGREGATION or CLASSIFICATION is stalling Americas social perfection. ---THE
EDITOR
THERE ARE NO RACES
If there are no races, what do we mean by “race relations?” As paradoxical as it may
seem, “race” and race relations are not the issues to be addressed in the twenty-first
century, if social scientists, legislators, humanists, and activists are committed to analytical
depth, logical reasoning, and scholarly integrity. Contrary to W.E.B Dubois’ claim,
neither “the color line,” nor “race” has ever been the problem of any century. The
problem is racial classification—a practice in which Dubois himself engaged—and the
poor reasoning that underlies this practice. It is racial classification that produces “races”
from the wide range of morphological diversity within the human species. Specifically,
social
scientists investigate not “race,” but persons classified as races, their experiences,
problems, and relations. However, the questions rarely asked is: how sound is racial
classification? Most discussions of race relations and activism around racial equality
fail to note that races are constructed through the practice of racial classification. They
also fail to inform the lay public that: (1) different types of races are constructed by
biologists, geneticists, anthropologists, and sociologists, (2) there is no “scientific”
consensus on the differences that demarcate races, and (3) lay persons’ perceptions of
“races” reflect the classificatory practices of natural and social scientists, government,
media, and educational institutions. These practices generally focus on differences in skin
color, hair type, skeletal structure, shape of skull, facial form, and often “cultural
differences” to place persons in racial categories. The institutionalization and
internalization of racial categories, through education and socialization, produce racialized
identities—“black people,” “white people,” “Asians,” “Latinos,” “Native Americans,” and
so on. These identities are the basis of in and out-group formations as well as various
forms of discrimination for members of one’s group. Discrimination, then, derives from
classification practices that categorize persons as blacks, whites, browns, reds, and
yellows, or African Americans, Euro-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian
Americans, respectively. It follows that the eradication of discrimination must begin with
the termination of the institutionalized racial classification of persons. It is testimony to a
superficial quality of reasoning in intellectual life that neither the current U.S. President,
members of his Panel on Race Relations, nor social scientists generally address their own
practices of racial classification and the resulting racialization of identities. Rather, they
prefer to discuss “race relations,” racism—a malaise allegedly affecting only “white
people”—racial inequalities, racial oppression, and the experiences of persons they classify
as black people and white people.
USED BY PERMISSION FROM AUTHOR DR.YEHUDI WEBSTER, CALIFORNIA
STATE UNIVERSITY
"race" is a bogus
concept that we've believed in far too long. Only when our leaders have the courage to
utter these words can we hope for
an end to racism, because when people fully understand that they have predicated their
hatred and bigotry upon a false
notion, then that hatred and bigotry will necessarily begin to dissipate. It will have no
choice!---Charles Michael Byrd
Race is,
and has always been a social concept without biological foundation. It is time for the public at large to abandon an idea which
has brought only harm to human relations.
---???
For instance, a person is not more likely to be denied a mortgage because he or she
is black (or Hispanic or Chinese), but because another person believes that he or she is black (or Hispanic or Chinese) and
ascribes particular behaviors with that racial or ethnic category.---AAA
AARC FORUM!!!
I agree with this AARC fellow that the concept of race is absurd. We just use and misuse the
concept of race to help us identify the various beautiful people in our world. We are all part of the human race but there is
nothing wrong with recognizing the differences and commonalities within the human race. We just have to stop thinking that we
are so different from each other just because we have different skin tones, different features or cultural practices. We are not
all going to get along in this world but don't let skin tone draw the lines of seperation. It is our characters that make us different
and don't allow us to get along with some people. Give people a chance to demonstrate their characters and then look at that
if you want to judge somebody.---Craig Sutton
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The
libertarian party is also moving to abolish racial classification
Exposing -- denying -- "race" and dispelling
"race"-hypnosis would effectively
end chronic inequalities.---George Winkel
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