• How would you define race? What does “race” mean to you?

  • I would define race in a variety of ways. Through my personal opinion, I believe race is defined as a person’s outer appearance, beliefs, culture, and behavioral differences. The term race means that no one person has the same appearance and beliefs. Everybody is different in their own way and that is what makes us all so unique and special. If everyone was defined as one race, we would not have the opportunity to meet new people of different cultural backgrounds. The term race does not define who we are; we are all created equally regardless of how everyone perceives us to be.

 

• How many races do you think there are? What are they? How do you decide which race someone belongs to?

  • I believe that there are many different types of races that are currently present here on planet Earth. Every different country has different races, beliefs, and cultural backgrounds. This world is home to a very diverse group of human beings. The diverse group includes Caucasians, African-Americans, Hispanics, Latinos, French, and much more. I believe that people decide who belongs to a certain race by their biological features and appearance. This is how society perceives how different people belong to different races. 

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• Would you trade your skin color? How do you think your life would be different if you looked like someone of a different race?

  • If I had an option of trading my skin color, I would decide not to exercise that option. I have no desire of changing skin colors because I do not define others simply by their outer appearance. I do believe that if I looked like someone of a different race, my life would be in fact different. In our society today, certain races are looked down upon one another because of false judgments. That process could affect someone’s overall, values, beliefs, and well-being. Overall, someone’s life could be greatly altered because something as simple as ones race.

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• What stereotypes have you heard or seen about different racial groups?

  • Throughout my life I have heard or seen different stereotypes about different racial groups. For example, I have often heard that Hispanics are the most hard-working people there is in agriculture. Next, I have been told that African Americans favorite food consist of fried chicken. Thirdly, I have heard that Caucasian males are considered weak and helpless. Through my personal opinion, I do not believe that these stereotypes are true. Every race I mentioned is considered hard workers, like fried chicken, and at times lazy.

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• Do you think people today should be held accountable for past discrimination? Why or why not?

  • Through my opinion, I do not believe that people should be held accountable for past discrimination. People are going to make mistakes because that is just who we are. No one person is considered perfect, we are all going to fail on a daily basis. To judge someone off of past discrimination is considered unruly.  In my opinion if that person has made a valid point to change, then they do not deserve to be judged. We were all put on this earth to love and forgive one another of their past mistakes, and this scenario deals directly with that statement.

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• Forty years ago, the Civil Rights Act declared that forced racial segregation was illegal. In light of this, why do you think some neighborhoods, schools and workplaces are still segregated?

  • When the Civil Rights Act was created, its main intentions were to enforce that racial segregation is illegal. Now forty years later, racial segregation still exist in some areas. Through my personal opinion, I do not understand why some areas of racial segregation still exist. If I had to guess, I would say that these areas were just exercising their freedom to gather in these certain areas. Although some may see it as unconstitutional, everybody has the right about who they want to associate and hang around with.

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Activity 1- Is Race for Real? - This activity requires you to explore 10 different factoids associated with race. And, you have the option of “going deeper” as well.

• Describe what you learned by completing this activity?

  • I learned multiple new and interesting facts about the idea of race. First I learned that race has no genetic basis. This means that no one characteristic, trait, or genes can be distinguished among members of a certain race. Next, race and freedom were born together. This was very interesting to me because when the new world was founded, equality was a radical new idea. Thirdly, colorblindness will not end the idea of racism. This statement suggests that the only way to end racism is by identifying and remedy social policies that advantage certain groups.

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Activity 2 - Sorting People - How easy is it to group people into “races” based on appearance? What about using individual traits? There are two parts to this activity.

• Describe your results when you tried to sort people based on their appearance?

  • Whenever I participated in the classification process, I found it rather hard to place each individual in specific categories based off of looks. In each category, I was only able to get one or two classifications right. I learned in this process that classification by someone’s appearance doesn’t always tell you about their ancestry backgrounds. This process is very subjective and will not always provide the correct answers. Overall, my results were very diverse and were not consistent throughout the exercise.

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• Describe your results when you tried to sort people based on physical traits?

  • Whenever I participated in the physical traits process, I again found it rather difficult to place everyone together off of certain physical traits. Although this process was a little easier, I still was not able to obtain too many right classifications. The classification process of one’s physical traits still produces different groupings. People’s main objective is that they tend to place certain people in classifications based solely off of their ideas. Overall, my results were very diverse and were not consistent just like my appearance classification process.

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Activity 3 - The Race Timeline - Learn more about the history and evolution of the race concept.

• Describe what you learned by exploring this timeline?

  • By exploring the timeline about race, I was able to learn new and interesting facts. First, I learned once the English arrived to the new land, neither the colonist nor Indians saw each other in racial terms. Next, I learned that in 1705 that Virginia slave codes were passed. The colonist began to write laws making slavery permanent for Africans, and dividing Blacks from whites. Thirdly, in 1776 the idea of “Caucasian” became known. Overall, the information I learned was very intriguing.

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Activity 4 - Human Diversity - Take the diversity quiz or explore the ways we're similar to one another. Learn about ancestry, the geographic distribution of traits, and the history of human migration.

• How did you do on the quiz? Describe the results.

  • On the human diversity quiz, I was able to obtain five out of ten questions correctly. The questions contained information about the many different types of human diversity that is currently present. The quiz allows you to review the results and see the feedback about each question. On the questions that I got wrong, I was able to see the correct answer as well as a detailed response providing feedback. The human diversity quiz allowed me to learn new and profound knowledge.

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• Regarding the “exploring diversity” activity, describe what you learned.

  • Regarding the “exploring diversity” activity, I was able to learn new information about the many diverse characteristics people hold. I learned that the U.S. immigration patterns give us the false impression of distinct races. Next I learned that the continent of Africa holds the widest range and most diversity of skin colors. Thirdly, I was able to learn that head sizes are thought to vary between races. Studies reveal this is not true because people in England and western Africa have larger heads than those in Sweden and South Africa.

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Activity 5 - Me, My Race, and I - View four slideshows examining different perspectives on race.

• Describe what you learned after viewing the four slideshows?

  • I learned new and valuable information after watching the slideshow presentation about me, My Race and me. For example, I leaned that in 1995, the average white family had over eight times more wealth than a nonwhite family. Assets are mentioned as one of the major ways classes are divided among one another. People are classified by what they have and don’t have in their society. The slideshow reveals several underlying causes that many people of a different race and classification experiences.

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Activity 6 - Where Race Lives - No measure of racial inequality in the U.S. is more striking than a comparison of housing and wealth. See how this happened, compare the story of two families, and understand why inequality persists 40 years after the civil rights movement. View the “Tail of Two Families”.

• Explain what happened to Max and Byron?

  • This exercise revealed the underlying cause and effect of being an African American and Caucasian male. Byron was the African American and Max was the Caucasian male. Throughout the slideshow, the story revealed that while Americans hold exactly eight times more wealth than the average African American household. This is evident among both Max and Byron. Byron obtained a scholarship to a prestige Ivy League school but had to focus on his funding’s first. While max had more wealth than Bryon, he was able to travel the world at the age of 18. At the end, Byron sold a house that had been completely renovated for a negligible increase of $29,500. Max sold his house for a staggering $299,000 nearly fourteen times what the paid initially for it.

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• After completing all of these activities, do you believe the information on this web site is factual? Explain.

  • Yes, I do believe all of the activities provided factual information about the idea of race. With all of the information that was provided, each answer had a detailed description to go along with it. The timeline, slideshow, and other various activities were very interesting and intriguing to learn about.  All the information had credible sources along with professional displays. Through my personal opinion, I believe this website done a great job in portraying the information.

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• Summary

  • This lesson was very interesting for me to read and learn about. The idea of race still plays a major factor in our modern day society. Nearly forty years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, racial segregation still exist. I believe that everyone is created equally regardless of one’s racial and cultural backgrounds. Next the activities in this lesson were very interesting to take part in. Each activity allowed me the opportunity to view new facts about different races. Overall, this lesson provided me new and profound knowledge about the topic of race in our modern day society.