LEC#3: The history of race concept

Question 1

What is the platonic approach to racial classification? and who came up with this idea?

Answer 1

• Carolus Linnaeus

- He believed the idea that personality and character traits were racially determined (means biologically determined)

Question 2

what was the racial view in Post- Darwinian Era?

Answer 2

-Gods design of creation as seen in the great chain of being was once used to explain racial inequality (whites were higher and more superior than any other race

Question 3

What is Polygenism?

Answer 3

• The notion that africans, asians, and native americans were created separately from the europeans
• Proponents argued that the biological existence of race exists, especially the clear superiority of europeans and inferiority of africans and native americans

Question 4

What is Monogenism?

Answer 4

• Suggested that all peoples were the descendants of adam but that different races or varieties had arisen as a result of degeneration, mostly due to the effects of the climate change in each part of the world

Question 5

What was the age of enlightenment?

Answer 5

“self” and “other” in imperial europe involved notions of superiority of european colonizers (ex: rational, artistic and free) and inferiority of the colonized (ex: irrational, deserved enslavement)

Question 6

what is the difference between racism and prejudice?

Answer 6

racism is when some races think other races are inferior to them and treat them negatively b/c of their physical characteristics

-prejudice is when people make generalizations about certain people

Question 7

how can the level of racism be measured in a country?**

Answer 7

• sampling value of inclusion and diversity in individuals and measuring that
• it can be measured based on your race and if you have an education, your standard of living, income, participation in national institutions
• sampling for the degree to which minorities share the values of assimilation and to what degree of assimilation they might aspire (someone comes from another country and slowly stops speaking their language and forgets their culture)

Question 8

what is racial profiling?

Answer 8

a range of discrimination or injustices committed by the police, institutions or powerful groups against radicalized or minority groups

Question 9

what are the consequences of racial profiling?

Answer 9

• racial profiling have huge effects on children and youth
• the loss of education and opportunities
• increased criminalization of children
• promotion of anti-social behaviour

Question 10

is islamophobia a racist idea?

Answer 10

yes b/c muslims have become targets of hostility and discrimination in canada and other countries around the world