Sociology Now, Census Update

WHEN WE THINK ABOUT RACE, we typically think of the most primordial and basic attri-

butes of a person, fixed and permanent, a foundation of identity. We assume that race is

carefully bounded, with no overlap—as my grade school social studies textbook taught me.

The chapter on “race” discussed only three: “Negroid, Mongoloid, and Caucasoid.” Nobody

could be a member of any other race, and nobody could belong to more than one race.

To me, the most interesting part of the book chapter was the illustrations. There were

three: a black guy in a loincloth, holding a spear, standing in front of a grass hut; an Asian

guy in a silk kimono, holding some sort of scroll, standing in front of a pagoda; and a white

guy in a business suit, holding a briefcase, standing in front of a skyscraper. All were men.

We were supposed to classify the three races, from least to the most civilized, technologi-

cally sophisticated, inventive, and

intelligent. It doesn’t take a genius

to figure out which of the three

“races” the illustrator belonged to.

How do sociologists think about

race?

Sociologists tend not to see fixed, immutable biologically based characteristics but the

ways in which we have come to see those characteristics as timeless and universal. Race is

less fixed than fluid, less eternal and more historical. In fact, race is relatively recent, an

invention of Europeans in the eighteenth century. Rather than immutable, it is among the

parts of our identity that is in

greatest flux at the present, as

individuals are increasingly

biracial or even multiracial.

With race, as with other

features of social life, believing

is seeing: When we believe that

there are only a certain number of races, then we will “see” those, and only those, races.

To a sociologist, race is more than a system of classification, a system that categorizes

people. Race is also one of the bases on which our society perceives, rewards, and punishes

Race and

Ethnicity

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Race is more than a system that

categorizes people according to physical

characteristics. It is a foundation of our

identity and a basis for social inequality.