Ranting about Race

We've defined race to be the social, economic, and cultural history of a given racial group. Like the definition of masculinity, it is never stable, but instead is constantly dynamic and changing over time. As a specific race gains history, that newly found history for the race modifies the outside views upon that race.

But what if the way the outside world sees a race is affected by the hegemonic masculinity for that race? Masculinity, for example, is defined in the African American community primarily by physical strength and physical accomplishments, whereas masculinity for Asian Americans is more typically defined by intellect. Perhaps by a race changing the definition of its hegemonic masculinity, it would be able to change the perspective with which the outside world sees that race.

Another thought that is being brought up is how to balance the fine line between teaching awareness of race and the different cultures' history through public school systems, with the delicate possibility of teaching unwanted racialized stereotypes along the way. The problem is to choose what to focus on and what to teach within the school system, and who is supposed to decide that. No matter what one does, one will always neglect to teach one thing for the sake of teaching another.

The lesson to gain out of this is that race seems to be a very complicated thing to teach and to think about in the "right" way. How does one make society and the world as fair as possible? One will never achieve the perfect balance, but one can always work towards it. Yet we should also remember somewhat the recurring theme of the class - we shouldn't feel hopelessly guilty about realizing how warped the society we live in is. Instead, we should be satisfied from the fact that we are aware of these issues, and that we should spread awareness more widely throughout society.