Race is A Social Reality

Race can be defined as, a socially constructed category, which implies that depictions of racial difference are human creations rather than external, essential categories.

A few months ago a classmate of mine, who's opinion I greatly respect made a statement regarding race that kind of threw me. We were discussing racism in urban schools, which is a primary aspect of what we do as educational anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, historians, and practitioners—we all get a good slice of the race issue—when my colleague said something to the effect of, "I think this whole race as a social construct conversation is overused, and getting too much play." Now this struck me because as practitioners of social science and race theorists, we rely on this definition of race as a cornerstone of our understanding of racial dynamics and discriminatory practices; nevertheless, there was something in his comment that resonated with me. Every time I teach race as a "social construct" which makes complete sense to me and helps me to explain a number of racial dynamics that have played themselves out over a vast history of racism and discrimination in America, I see the image of myself as a black man and I know beyond a shadow of doubt that essentialist characteristics of race (phenotype, skin color, biological characteristics) still matter and still impact me wherever I go. Whatever the term or the logic we use to define race, when I walk into a department store, the stereotypes still apply; when I show any kind of emotional response to anything, the stereotypes still apply; when I walk down the street or drive down the road in a white neighborhood, the stereotypes still apply; even when I demonstrate academic excellence it seems to be posed as a matter of exception to be marveled at—Why?—because when people look at me, they don't see a social construct, they see a black man. Because of that, a big part of my life story involves shaking off those stereotypes.


Race, along with class, gender, etc. Are socially constructed, but they are also a social reality. "This means that after race—or class or gender—is created, it produces real affects on actors racialized as 'black' or 'white.' Although race, as other social structures is unstable, it has a 'changing same' quality at its core” (E. Bonilla-Silva). That is to say that while race does have dynamic elements that change and are reconstructed over time, there are also essentialist categories of race that remain fixed.

To ignore race as a social reality, which seems to be what many Americans want to do as we push towards a post-racial society, is to deny an entire history of racial exploitation which includes the near extermination of the Native American, the victimization of the Mexican, the exploitation of Asian contract laborers, and of course the dehumanization of the African which extended overtly into the Jim Crow era. The vestiges of this racial social order continue to manifest themselves in our country both materially and ideologically. The history of America is based upon a doctrine of white supremacy which gave rise to a racialized social system. This system bestowed privilege upon Europeans, and assigned deficit to non-Europeans. The result was systems of social relations that reinforce white privilege socially, economically, politically, etc. The tendency of actors racialized as white in this system is to actively struggle to maintain, or passively receive the merits of white privilege. Those assigned to the subordinate race have 2 choices: 1) struggle to change and challenge systemic and structural racism, or 2) become resigned to their position. Thus, the social reality of race and racism continues to play itself out regardless of what the "social construct" is doing. One must then conclude that while these social constructs are defined and redefined, inhabited, transformed, and reinvented, there are certain realities that remain fixed. Simply explaining them away as a social construct can’t work. This would only amount to justification of the status quo by pointing out that certain “races” need to “get over it” and move beyond their racial baggage. A justification which does little more than to affirm the social reality that the “get over it” argument attempts to dismiss.

Written by Frederick A Hanna