Race and Education

Defining Race and Racisms

It is widely accepted that there is no such thing as separate human races in the traditional biological sense. Those characteristics that are usually taken to denote racial phenomena (especially physical markers such as skin tone) are assigned different meanings in particular historical and social contexts. Far from being a fixed and natural system of genetic difference, race is a system of socially constructed and enforced categories that are constantly recreated and modified through human interaction. In the United States, for example, any physical marker of African American ancestry is usually taken as sufficient to identify a person as Black: that same person, however, could board a flight to Brazil and, on disembarking, would find that he or she was identified differently by most Brazilians because the conventional race categories in that society are markedly different than the supposedly commonsense assumptions in the United States. The dominant understandings of race in a society always reflect, to some degree, that society's historical experience of colonial conquest/subjugation. Some writers use quotation marks around the term to signify that they understand race as a social construct rather than a biological fact.

This is a simple point that is now accepted by the majority of scientists (in the natural and social sciences). It is, however, necessary to make this point very clearly because there are still powerful voices that repeat the falsehood of separate, fixed, and deterministic human races. Politicians on the extreme Right trade in these beliefs but so too do those writers on intelligence and cognitive abilities who argue for a genetic basis for significant differences in intellectual, sporting, and criminal behavior.

Racism is also a contested term and is almost always controversial. To be labeled a racist is generally a highly derogatory slur; using such labeling can be an advantage to scholars working for greater race equality because they begin from a position where most people will be broadly sympathetic to their aims (at least in public). However, the force of the label can also be a hindrance; racism is such a harsh word that many people feel uneasy about using it. In addition, the term is so forceful that people usually react very defensively against any suggestion that they might possibly be involved in actions or processes that could be termed racist. Such reactions show a failure (sometimes a refusal) to engage with the different ways in which racism can operate. There are multiple forms of racism and, consequently, it is increasingly common to see writers using the word racisms to denote the plurality of forms and experiences addressed by the term.

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