The Social Construction of Race

Race is a social construction because there is no genetic research that proves any biological basis for differentiating people into seperate racial groups. If this is true than why do we differntiate people into seperate racial groups in the U.S. census? Even though there is no genetic differences between races, we still differentiate people based on physical appearance, ancestrial heritage, and cultural history.

This idea first came into play when Europeans came to America and classified people into a social hierarchy, with themselves at the top. This is when we first see ideas of white dominance in America. The people who were at the bottom of this hierarchy were inevitabely subject to economic and social exploitation. With the social construction of race came the legal construction of laws that seperated people and treated them differently based on race. Despite the civil rights movement, institutional discrimination still permeates the legal framework, government policies, urban land-use zoning ordaninces, and the practices of builders, landlords, bankers, insurance companies, appraisers, and real estate agents.