Race not Race 🏁

When you Google "is race a socially constructed concept?" the most accepted answer appears saying "Race is not Biological. It is a Social Construct" (NY Times). While I agree that society draws the boundaries of where each race starts and ends, doesn't our genetic material make us look they way we do which allows for racial classification? With a term as abstract and controversial as race, there seems to be no one right answer to what the definition of race is.

Our in-class discussion regarding race helped me understand the very fluid nature of race; race changes as time goes on. Many times in history, race was created as a justification as domination. This very fact perfectly shows the changing nature of race. While the whites used skin color to assert dominance over blacks, Hitler and the Jews were both light skinned. So instead Hitler asserted dominance of the "Aryan" race - classifying people with their blond hair and blue eyes. But then what did mean to be a Jew? Not all Jews follow the religion of Judaism, and not all of them have the stereotyped long nose.

When asked what race one identifies with on standardized exams, what is the point if the person answering the question and the person collecting the data think race as totally different things. In my opinion looking at people's race does not provide people with that valuable of information because the term means something to almost every single person; once again it goes back to our discussion of perspective. 

I can safely say after reading Maus, discussing in-class, and writing my blog I am only more confused about what race is. At least one thing seems to be universal about race, and that is that we are all apart of the Human Race.