As I was studying for my anthropology test, I realized that we were studying some of the topics in my research paper. One of the things we are talking about is racism and the different forms of racism which caused me to think about my paper. My paper does not really talk about the different kinds of racism, but it does try to establish were it came from. Another thing that we are studying in my anthropology class is stereotypes. We are talking about how stereotypes relate to individual racism. One of the major topics in my paper is how stereotypes influence racism. Even though these are two completely different classes, the links between them bring them together.
Megan's Commonplace Book: Ending the First Year with a Bang!!
My philosophy all my life has been the pursuit of excellence. – John Kluge
We talked about race and prejudice for a while in anthropology, and I learned a lot. I learned that race is not biological at all. It is something that humans have come up with to differentiate themselves. Race is a socially constructed idea that continually tears America apart. In my paper, I talked about the causes of racism and racial profiling. In anthropology, we talked about how it became and how people experience it. For example, the Appalachians are seen as ignorant and backwards because of the way they talk. They are made fun of a lot and are not shown respect because of language and their appearance. They are also seen as rapists which I did not understand. I still would like to know how someone can look like a rapist just by the way they talk. When it came to stereotypes, it was like I was understanding more, because it was double the information. It was like I was rereading what I already knew. Even though the information was familiar, I still did learn some new things. For example, with the Appalachians, one Appalachian man was a professor and author. One time he was around another professor, and she said that he was uneducated because of the way he talked. The lady stereotyped that people who do not sound proper are uneducated. Anthropology helped me a lot when it came to writing this paper. It gave me new perspectives but also reiterated things I already knew.