What are the primary problems with the concept of race and what are the social and political implications of using race to define and study groups of people?
Using Brown and Landrum-Brown’s dimensions, describe the dimensions across which cultural characteristics are defined.
Select one of the four cultures describe by M. Ho and compare its cultural characteristics to those of Northern European culture in the following dimensions: nature, time orientation, people relations, work and activity, and human nature. How might these differences manifest themselves in the helping relationship?
Discuss the consequences of the movement from “primitive” to “civilized” culture.
What are the pros and cons of employing an alternative helping model, as opposed to an adaptive or adjusted model?
Social Construction and Arbitrary Classification: Race is a social construct, a concept created by societies to categorize people. Racial categories are arbitrary, change over time, and vary across cultures. Historically, these classifications were established to justify unequal treatment, colonization, and slavery.
Ambiguity and Overlap: There are no clear genetic boundaries that consistently distinguish one "race" from another. DNA analysis shows that human populations have always been mixed, with genetic lines blurring and overlapping continuously across continents.
Social and Political Implications of Using Race
Using race to define and study groups has significant negative social and political consequences:
Reinforcement of Inequality and Prejudice: The use of racial categories perpetuates the idea of fundamental differences, which forms the basis for racism, prejudice, and systemic discrimination. This can manifest in housing, employment, criminal justice, and healthcare disparities.
Misguided Policy and Research: Research that uses race as a causal factor (rather than a proxy for socioeconomic status, discrimination exposure, or environmental factors) can lead to misguided policy and flawed medical practice. For example, attributing higher rates of a disease to "race" ignores the underlying socioeconomic and structural factors that are the true drivers of health inequities.
Political Mobilization and Division: Race is frequently mobilized as a political tool to create in-group/out-group divisions, affecting voting patterns, immigration policy, and resource allocation. This use often obscures class and economic inequalities by focusing attention on racial differences.
Brown and Landrum-Brown’s Dimensions of Cultural Characteristics
Brown and Landrum-Brown describe cultural characteristics across several intersecting dimensions. These dimensions provide a framework for understanding how different cultures organize their societies and worldview:
Nature of People: How a culture views human nature—as inherently good, inherently bad, or a mixture of good and bad. This can affect views on trustworthiness, criminal justice, and rehabilitation.
Sample Answer
The concept of "race" primarily suffers from a lack of biological basis and has profound social and political implications, often leading to inequality and discrimination.
Problems with the Concept of Race
The primary problems with the concept of race are rooted in its disconnect from biology and its function as a social construct:
Lack of Biological Foundation: Race is not a valid biological concept. Genetic variation within any geographically defined racial group is often greater than the variation between groups. The physical traits traditionally used to define "race" (like skin color, hair texture, and facial features) are controlled by a small number of genes and are adaptations to environment, not markers of deep, distinct genetic divisions. The term "race" inaccurately implies discrete, homogeneous, and fixed human subspecies.