Different Races

This week in Sociology, we learned about the concept of race. In sociology terms, race is not biological, but rather sociological. Society engraves in our heads how we categorize people and what groups they belong to just by looking at them. Race is a term used to associate people into certain groups based on their skin color. We learned in class that race is not that simple by comparing it to a metaphor. The metaphor was that my teacher brought in many different sports balls; soccer balls, basketballs, footballs, little balls, medium balls, and even plush balls. He then told us to categorize them into groups. My class put them according to color, type of ball, and size. Then my teacher started to add different kinds of sports balls from around the world. They did not fit in any of the categories completely, so we just stuck them into one they looked like they would fit into. This metaphor showed us that society categorizes races into different groups, but the reality is that if gather more and more races, it gets hard to categorize each person into a group due to their genetic makeup. This metaphor also showed us that we all learned in our head how we categorize races based on how they look and we group them all together, even if someone doesn't completely look like a race, we force them into it. Sociology has taught me to open my eyes about race because I used to categorize different looking people into creation groups of race without knowing what they actually are, but only based on their looks. But truly, based on everyones biological genetic makeup, we are all the same. Our skin color should not be judged on by society because they are "different"; skin color is all based on where their ancestry is from and how much UV rays are in that area, so it would be easier to adapt to that weather. In different societies, they treat different groups based on what that society thinks of that group. That group may be a minority there, or a "higher" authority. We read an article that explained how peoples race can change in a different area. Race is not a constant and based on where you are and how society there perceives your skin color, then that is how your race is going to be determined.