Race and the Construction of Human Identity

"Race" and the Construction of Human Identity
Audrey Smedley

Retell

The main idea of Audrey Smedleys's piece, "Race" and the Construction of Human Identity, is that the idea of race is a relatively new concept.  It is a social invention. Historians have looked at ancient texts to try to find evidence of writers mentioning skin color. When shades of skin was mentioned, it did not take on the same meaning as today.
"What seems strange to us today is that the biological variations among human groups were not given significant social meaning.  Only occasionally do ancient writers ever even remark on the physical characteristics of a given person or people." (Rosenblum and Travis, 2012, p.49) 
"No structuring of inequality, whether social, moral, intellectual, cultural or otherwise, was associated with people because of their skin color… (Rosenblum and Travis, 2012, p.49) 
Another idea Smedley speaks of is that a person's ethnic identity was not always thought of as permanent.  It was fluid.  As people interacted and even intermarried, they learned new languages and customs.  They were able to coexist quite well. Changes occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as American colonists developed attitudes about different groups.  They thought of themselves as civilized and superior, while others were different therefore less worthy.


Recall/React

I was reminded of my mother as I read this piece.  She was a French Canadian, Catholic child of seven when she moved to the United States with her family of eleven.  From the stories I have heard, it was not an easy move.  The community looked down on them and were not afraid to show their disgust.  School was hard.  My mother did not speak the language and therefore could not pass to the next grade. By the time she did move on, she was two years behind her peers.  There was no help for her to learn the language.  She was made to feel like her native tongue was bad and several of her siblings even stopped speaking French.
It is interesting to think how a little girl who was the same color as everyone else in her town, who wore the same clothes as the other town folk, and who lived within a couple of miles of everyone else could feel so less than worthy.  It was a scandal when my father married my mother. How could a nice, upper-middle class Protestant boy marry someone like her.
As I was growing up, my grandparents would always come and bring me to church.  I always thought it was so nice to spend Sundays with them.  Looking back, I think it was a way to get me into the Protestant Church and not have me go to the Catholic Church.  A way to show I was one of them.


Rethink

I have learned that people will do many things to feel as though they are better an others.  They will make up myths about groups of people, they will even make laws to support their beliefs.  Race is a powerful social invention that has structured our society.  We need to realize that these beliefs we have grown up with are just that- inventions.