Race

“Race” is not a black or white issue in the social sciences, and for the last sixty years it has been increasingly called into question. This paper will answer three specific questions dealing with the social scientific criticisms of “race.” The three questions will deal with the social construction of reality, the justification of basic concepts supporting the idea of separate races, and explaining the cause of high rates of hypertension among African-Americans. Our first …

…of made-up boundary markers. In short, a social race is an ethnic group. The real danger lies in using “race” as an explanatory device in assuming that a person thinks, feels, or acts in a certain way because of where his or her ancestors came from, or because of what she/he looks like. We should all try to love every single ethnic group in the world—it would only make it easier on us!