The Last One?

This week in class we covered the new and exciting topic of race. The main idea stressed in throughout the material is that race is not a biological phenomenon, it’s a sociological one. The definition of a biological race is that of a subspecies of human being that has certain specific biological characteristics or traits that separate it from others among itself. The sociological definition of race is primarily based on geographically determined traits that are typically recent, superficial variations.

We also did an apparently famous activity known as the IAT test. This test had you classify words into the categories good or bad, and classify faces into the categories black or white. The test eventually had one sort the two subsets together, having you organize both faces and the words simultaneously. Your amount of correct answers and response times were recorded and checked for differences to assess your color preferences (aka how racist you are). When I took this test it informed me that I had little to no skin tone preference. I was kind of surprised, because I know I’m racist and have skin color preferences, so as far as my results go, this test was not very accurate. It probably had to do with the fact that I spend too much of my time on video games, and my thumb to brain to eye sorting abilities are on the list to be made a world wonder, or that I knew what the test was measuring before I even started the assessment. I think it’s accurate for most people, but I definitely did not deserve the “unprejudiced” label.

We also read myths about the ‘differences’ between black and white athletes. I believed and still believe that blacks tend to make better athletes, but not for any biological reason. It’s a known fact that poverty tends to dominate two things: sports and the military. The reason being that blacks resided in greater and more accumulated poverty than whites do, and interestingly enough, someone who has the money to go to college and pursue an MD doesn’t rely as intensely on sports or extracurricular activities to help them get there. Who knew, right? After reading the myths and truths though I generally found my beliefs to be supported, and I was surprised that there was some data, however inconclusive, that showed minor differences between white and black athletes. The part about finding more developed fast twitch muscle fibers in black professional sprinters than in white professional sprinters was pretty incredible.

In my first addition to this blog I labeled myself a sociologist from the cradle to the grave. I have always had somewhat of a “sociological imagination”, known to some as the combination or critical thought and common sense, and have used it to look into a lot of issues, whether sociological or not, and have ultimately formed opinions and ideas that I’ve copied from intelligent people all over the world. Opinions and ideas that set me apart from the rest of my peers, and left me thinking to myself alone instead of establishing social relationships. There are no topics that I specifically enjoyed and none that I would have like to spend less time on. I had a basic understanding of just about everything we did in class this year from previous independent thought that I assumed everyone shared and experienced. The one thing I learned from participating in this class that stood out above all else is that there are still individuals not capable of abstract or critical thought at my age or even older, and through this I learned that I am a condescending asshole.