Question

Visit the PBS Web site and view, Race: The Power of Illusion > Sorting People, and then select: Begin Sorting. See if you can sort the people into racial classifications just by the person's appearance. Check your results and describe what you found. There will probably be many misclassified people. Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

       What does this exercise tell you about assumptions on 'races'? Write at least 2-3 sentences about your findings.

       Link: http://www.pbs.org/race/002_SortingPeople/002_00-home.htm

Answer 1

I really believed that I could classify people into groups of race based on their appearance. After taking the test and observing each picture minutely, I thought my results would be fairly good. However, the results were complete opposite as 90% of my guesses were wrong. I believe I am not someone to labels people whenever I see people of diverse cultures, however, taking this test made me realize that in some ways, I too judge or make inferences about people based on their appearance. A lot of people do not realize that they too judge people. A lot of people judge others by the color of the skin. I didn’t realize that classifying individuals to the race they belong based on physical appearance would be racist. By doing so, you wrongly judge someone who may not belong to a particular race which would be extremely offensive as a lot of people are very proud of their race and it is a sensitive topic due to the prevalence of racism in our country. Also by assuming, we do not give people the chance to get involved because we already assume that we know much about them. Thus I feel guilty of doing this because at times I myself am not aware that I am judging individuals and also it seems harmless but in fact it is actually selfish. Thus we should try to refrain from making such assumptions and must give everyone an opportunity to present themselves.