CAS SO 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, Polygenism, Social Darwinism
Document Summary
The sociological study of race treats it as a social phenomenon that seems natural but isn"t. Race is a real social distinction and people around the world have drawn sharp lines between. Us and them on the basis of race. But as a biological, genetic or cultural category, race has. Race is constructed in the interests of groups that wish to maintain power and social exclusion. To speak of the myth of race is to say that it is largely a social construction, a set of stories we tell ourselves to organize reality and make sense of the world. We tell set of stories over and over and, collectively, believe in it and act on it. For example, in the past, it was believed that the irish were a distance category of people who carried innate differences in their blood, differences that made them permanently inferior.
