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50 Interesting Facts About

Dec 31, 2015

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sean-blackburn

50 Interesting Facts About. RACISM. #1. The concept of race is a modern concept. In the ancient world, the Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims did not have racial categories.  Rather people were divided according to religion, class, language, etc. #2. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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RACISM

Interesting Facts AboutWhile humans differ genetically in some ways, such as blood type and skin pigmentation, most anthropologists and biologists believe categories of race are not biologically grounded because modern humans simply have not evolved into separate subspecies or races.Samuel George Morton (1799-1851) tried to prove in the 19th century that select races were superior to others by measuring the cranial capacity (brain size) of different groups (whites, American Indians, blacks). He also argued that there were different origins and lineages for different races (polygenism), rather than a single creation (monogenism) as found in the Bible.In the medieval era, Muslims and Christians divided humans based on the categories of believer and nonbeliever, not on biological race. Additionally, the Jews based the differences between goyim (non-Jew) and Jew on faith rather than on biological differences.The U.S. Census Bureau defines race as a social category recognized by the United States and does not attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically. The Census Bureau recognizes five categories of race: White (people with origins in Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa,) Black or African American (Africa), American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. The census also includes an Hispanic ethnic category. It is an ethnic category rather than a race category because the Latino community includes many races, such as white, black, Native American, Asian, and mixed.Race and ethnicity are different entities. While both are social constructs, race is associated with the idea that there are innate biological differences and has largely been discredited. Ethnicity, on the other hand, is associated with culture, religion, language, etc.In the early 20th century, some churches in the U.S. would hang a pinewood slab on the door with a comb hanging from a string. A person could enter only if his or her skin was lighter than the pinewood and if they could run the comb through their hair without it snagging.Since the very first U.S. census in 1790, every U.S. census has sorted people by race. Since then, racial groupings have changed 24 times.According to the 2010 American census, white and Asian children had the lowest rates of poverty of any ethnic group. Blacks had the highest level of children living in poverty at 38.2%, children who were identified with two or more races were reported at 22.7%, and Hispanic children were reported at 32.3%.The Human Genome Project, which mapped out the complete human genetic code, proved that race could not be identified in our genes. While scientists may use the idea of race to make practical distinctions among fluid sets of genetic traits, all people belong to the same hominid species, Homo sapiens sapiens (Latin for wise man or knowing man). In other words, biologically, there is one human race.Traditionally the U.S. has followed the concept of hypodescent, or the rule that a child of a mixed race union is classified in the less privileged group.In 1662, Virginia outlawed interracial sex when the legislature amended its prohibition of all fornication to impose heavier penalties if the guilty parties were negroes and Christians. In 1691, Virginia made it illegal for a negro, mulatto, or Indian man to marry or accompany a white woman. Laws prohibiting mixed marriage in Virginia were in effect until 1967. South Carolina did not overturn its ban on interracial marriage until 1998, and even then 38% of voters opposed the referendum.In the 1800s, Irish immigrants to the U.S. were considered to be closer to Africans than to the English. Italian newcomers were called Guineas, an epithet reserved for African Americans.The term Arab is not a racial term but rather a cultural and linguistic term. It refers to those who speak Arabic as their first language. Arabs share a culture and history, but Arabs are not a race.A Harvard professor wrote four adamant letters in 1863 to Lincolns Civil War Commission asserting that incorporating blacks as equals in the reunited nation would contaminate the white race, both socially and biologically.At the end of the 19th century, American anthropologists used Darwins notion of survival of the fittest to justify the killing of American Indians and forced regression of blacks to servant class. In light of the survival of the fittest theory, it was also popular to believe that the defective bodies and minds of savage races would gradually lead to their own extinction.The infamous Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male launched by the U.S. Public Health Service in Macon County, Alabama, in 1932 was created to confirm the long held view that venereal diseases acted differently in blacks than in whites. The study is widely considered unethical, mainly because researchers knowingly did not treat patients with syphilis, even after penicillin was discovered to be an effective treatment. The study lasted 40 years, until 1972.Interracial marriage has been legal in the U.S. since 1967. In 2008, a record 14.6% of all first marriages in the U.S. were interracial marriages. Nine percent of whites, 16% of blacks, 26% of Hispanics, and 31% of Asians married someone whose race or ethnicity was different from their own. White men/Asian women pairings are the most common form of interracial dating and marriage in the U.S.Statistics show that white wife/black husband marriages are twice as likely to end in divorce than white wife/white husband couples by the 10th year of marriage. However, a black wife/white husband marriage is 44% less likely to divorce than a white wife/white husband couple by the 10th year of marriage.In 2007, economists Joseph Price and Justin Wolfers argued that their research showed that National Basketball Association referees are more likely to call fouls on players of a different race than themselves.Research indicates that infants as young as six months old notice racial differences.According to federal statistics, one in four students reports being a target of ethnic or racial bias in a typical school year.In California, 40% of African American men between 18-25 are either in jail, on parole, or on probation.California was the first state to ban the use of race and ethnicity in public university admissions. However, now that affirmative action is banned (Proposition 209), Asian American students have dominated admissions. At UC Berkeley, for example, 46% of those admitted into the 2012 freshman class are Asian; 30% are white.