Defining Race and Ethnicity But what exactly is race? First, we need to distingu

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Defining Race and Ethnicity But what exactly is race? First, we need to distinguish race from ethnicity. Social scientists define ethnic groups as categories of people who are distinctive on the basis of national origin or heritage, language or cultural practices. "Members of an ethnic group ries that make them feel that their customs, culture, and outlook are distinctive." Indeed, in Reading 20, Harlan Lane argues that there is a Deaf-World ethnic group distinct from those for whom deafness is a hearing impairment. hold a set of common memo- Thus, ethnicity is very much about the intensity of people's feelings, and these may be inconsistent, as well as, change over time. For example, being an Italian American in the 1920s involved much more intensity of feeling, interac- tion, and political organization than it does now, and being a Jew has become an ethnic, rather than a religious, identity for many. For others, such as Bosnian refugees, ethnic identity can involve a painful choice between religion and nationality-are they Bosnian, Bosnian Msi or Musim, or do they reject ethnic identity altogether since "ethnic cleansing" made them refugees in the first place? 73 Finally, even though ethnic identity is often more important to people than race it can be obscured by race. For example, focusing only on race would hide the important differences between African Americans, Haitians, Somalis, Ethiopians, or Jamaicans-a black American ethnic groups. Similarly, Americans with Middle Eastern heritage (who are classified as white in the census) are often misdescribed as Arabs, which includes only those from Arabic-speaking countries. A scene in the movie Crash made this point: in vandalizing the store of an Iranian grocer, the looters left behind graffiti about "Arabs." but Iranians speak Farsi and do not consider themselves Arabic. In all, beneath panethnic terms such as Middle Eastern, Arab American, Latino, or Asian American, one will find strong ethnic attachments based on national origin or religion. The term race first appeared in the Romance languages of Europe in the Middle Ages to refer to breeding stock. A race of horses described common ancestry and a distinctive appearance or behavior. Race appears to have been first applied to New World peoples by the Spanish in the 16th century. Later t was adopted by the English, again in reference to people of the New World, and it generally came to mean people, nation, or variety. By the late 18th century "when scholars became more actively engaged in investigations, classifications and definitions of human populations, the term race was elevated as the one major symbol and mode of human group differentiation employed extensively for non-European groups and even those in Europe who varied in some way from the subjective norm." Though elevated to the level of science, the concept of race continued to reflect its origins in animal breeding. Farmers and herders had used the concept to describe stock bred for particular qualities; scholars used it to suggest that human behaviors could also be inherited. "Unlike other terms for classifying people . .

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Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) The author of this piece talks about the variations between “race” and “ethnicity.” The author talks about how “race” is something one is essentially born with an “ethnicity” is a matter of a shared culture, language, religion, nationality, origin etc. This piece explores the dynamics of pan-ethnic categorisations and the common misconceptions of when one culture might be confused for another when a tiny detail might be overlooked.

The author goes on to talk about the etymology and origins of the word “race” and how it was used to describe livestock in certain European languages. The term evolved when exploration led to the discovery of the new world and the people that were different from one’s own were called a different “race.”

The author seems to have made the purpose of this piece to explain to the reader the connotations of classifying human beings into a “race” or “ethnicity.” Quotes from anthropologists in this piece, talk about how grouping individuals by their colour would be similar to grouping cars by colour. It would only help describe their external attributes and not the internal workings. Thus stating that segregation can be equally as ambiguous as judging a book by its cover.

The piece progresses into one that talks about the “no race” category of people in social sciences and research. Even the task of sending one’s DNA to an ancestry research company for identification is mostly frivolous to the author as people are tested for the geographic origin and not racial origins. The author concludes by likening race to astrology. He believes that the credulous individuals will pick up on arbitrary hints to believe in it, while the logical will believe that it is an arbitrary concept.

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