A Brief History Of The Word 'Race'

Basil L.

This factsheet provides an overview of how 'race' is a socio-culturally constructed category that has changed over time. The factsheet explains how the invented category of 'race' has real impacts on people of colour in life. 'Race' may not be real but racism definitely is.

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References

Adelman, L. (Director). (2003). The Difference Between Us (Season 1, Episode 1) [TV series episode]. Jeng, J. (Writer). Race: The Power of Illusion. California Newsreel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXeb5eQ2b3Q
Banton, M. (2015). What We Now Know About Race and Ethnicity. The Scientific Sources of the Paradox. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 11-27.

Source Authors

Larry Adelman, Michael Banton

Keywords

'Race' as a Political Tool, Active Intervention, Challenge Assumptions, Christianity, Confronting Prejudice, Constructing 'Race', Constructing Difference, Constructing Race, Critical Race Theory, Deconstructing Popular Ideas, DNA as a concept, Historicizing Whiteness, Language and Power, Language of Difference, Religion and Power, Scientific Ideas and Power, Scientific Racism, Social Ideas and Power, White Supremacy

Key Figures

Anders Retzius, Carl Gustav Carus, Charles Darwin, Georges Cuvier, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, Petrus Camper, William Edwards

Themes

History, Theory