# 4 Is race about power?

If someone’s race does not depend on their ancestry, what might it depend on? One answer is that it depends on something about society – how society is organised, the relations between people, and social processes that sort people into groups.

## Activity 5

Spend about thirty minutes on this activity

Watch the following video.

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Transcript

Now, watch the video again, answering the questions below as you go. You may need to pause the video or rewatch short segments.

1. In the video, race science is described as emerging at the same time as colonialism and slavery, and this is no coincidence. Why is this not a coincidence?

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### Discussion

1. According to the speakers in the video, the idea of race as innate biological difference was a crucial justification for the horrors of colonialism and slavery. Therefore, it’s not a coincidence that it emerged as an idea around this time.

2. In the video, C. Brandon Ogbunu says that ‘the biology of race is not a useful concept’. Describe one reason given in the video for this.

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### Discussion

2. The biology of race is not a useful concept, according to the speakers in the video, because the human species has very little genetic variation. There is no gene that exists in all and only the members of one race. Genetic similarities on the level of continental groups is very fuzzy and weak, to the extent that it is almost meaningless. Also, someone that has a particular ancestry (e.g. Indian heritage) can have more in common genetically with someone who has different ancestry than someone who also has Indian heritage.

3. Why might people have racial identities, even if there are no biological differences between races?

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### Discussion

3. One reason that racial identities might still exist is because the idea that race is real (in a biological sense) has been around for a long time and therefore has affected how people have been viewed and treated by others, and how they have viewed themselves. Therefore, people that are classified as a particular race might have cultural similarities and shared traditions.

In the video you have just watched, you have heard race being described as a social construction. Social constructions can nevertheless be real, and can have important impacts on people’s lives. One example of this is money. Money is real – just think of what it can do and what you can’t do without it. But unlike other real things in the world like mountains or electrons, money is socially constructed in the sense that its value and function – what makes it real – depends on collective social agreement.

For example, a ten pound note is a piece of paper which we collectively agree is worth ten pounds. We can use that piece of paper to do things in the world – we can buy things with it. When someone goes to pay for a book with a ten pound note, they trust that the seller will accept this piece of paper in exchange for the book. When the seller accepts the ten pound note, they trust that they will be able to use it to purchase something, or deposit it in a bank. Paper banknotes are clearly symbolic – the difference between a ten pound and a fifty pound note has nothing to do with the value of the paper it’s printed on. Rather, a fifty pound note is worth more than a ten pound note because we have collectively agreed to treat it as such. Even forms of currency which might appear more intrinsically valuable, like gold, only have value (in terms of, say, what can be purchased with it or exchanged for it) because of a broad social agreement that gold as a common currency has this value.

Of course, money has enormous effects on our lives – fundamental aspects of someone’s life, like their health, wellbeing, and safety, are hugely dependent on how much money they have. So, money is a straightforward case of something that is socially constructed. And, despite being socially constructed and arising out of human interests and actions, it is not dependent on how single individuals or small groups of individuals perceive it. If someone decides that the ten pound note they are holding in their hand is actually worth fifty pounds, that won’t change what they can buy with it or the balance in their bank account if they deposit it. It won’t change the social reality that the ten pound note is worth ten pounds.

Whether a category such as race is part of social reality depends on the practices and assumptions within a particular society. Although social categories are dependent on human interests and behaviours, they are not dependent purely on any one individual’s perspective. For any particular society at a particular time, there will be a fact of the matter about which social categories exist in that society. Discovering what social categories exist in a society allows social scientists to generate accurate explanations and predictions about the workings of that society.

OpenLearn - What can philosophy tell us about race?
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