Entho Practice

(I’m Persian and I moved to the U.S 4 years ago, get as creative as you want)
Anthropologists find no scientific basis for classifications of race. Genetically, there is only one race―the human race, with all its apparent diversity. Yet despite consistent efforts over the last century by anthropologists and others to counter the inaccurate belief that races are biologically real, race has remained a powerful framework through which many people see human diversity and through which those in power organize the distribution of privileges and resources. Race—which is scientifically not real― has become culturally real in the pervasive racism found in many parts of the globe, including the United States.

Race is a deeply influential system of thinking that affects people and institutions. Over time imagined categories of race have shaped our cultural institutions—schools, places of worship, media, political parties, economic practices—and have organized the allocation of wealth, power, and privilege at all levels of society. Race has served to create and justify patterns of power and inequality within cultures worldwide, and many people have learned to see those patterns as normal and reasonable. So, anthropologists also examine racism: individuals’ thoughts and actions as well as institutional patterns and policies that create or reproduce unequal access to power, privilege, resources, and opportunities based on imagined differences among groups.

Race and racism can be incredibly difficult topics of conversation in U.S. culture. How can the toolkit of anthropology help build relationships of rapport and trust that lead to deeper mutual understanding and opportunities for collective action? Addressing issues of race and racism requires first reflecting on race and racism in your own life and then opening up an honest conversation with others.

In your classroom or in another setting on campus—perhaps your dorm, a student organization, or a religious group―write down your personal reflections and recollections about race and racism as provoked by the following questions.

What is your first recollection of race? Of encountering racism?
How would you describe the cultural environment in which you were raised: racially homogeneous? multiracial-multicultural? something else? How did the racial environment differ between your home/community and school?
What patterns of race relations do you recall from high school? How much healthy social interaction was there across racial lines? What about interracial dating?
What patterns of race relations do you find on your college campus? Are they different from your experiences in high school? Have you encountered race and racism on campus?
Complete this sentence: The most important thing that our country needs to do now about race is. . .
What obstacles do you encounter in discussing and addressing race and racism?
How do contemporary political debates, for example, about immigration, anti-Asian hate crimes in relation to COVID, or Black Lives Matter, relate to the concepts in our book about acculturation, assimilation, multiculturalism, and/or amalgamation?

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