The Ugly Truth

In the film "Race; The Power of an Illusion" , Pilor Ossorio who is a microbiologist states, "There's as much or more diversity and genetic difference within any racial group as there is between people of different racial groups. " The evidence found in his study and other various studies can back up his statement; which show there are no genetic markers that define race, or that there are no genetic markers that only a certain race has in comparison to other races. A mutation occurs and it then causes variations in our genes; which causes the different hair textures and or colors as well as the different color of skins and the different facial features that we all have. Another reason for why I agree with Ossorio's position is because the way we as people have moved and mated since the beginning of life is also another important reason for why there is so many gene variations. All of these gene variations can be found in almost every country, which shows our diversity of human beings

I identify my self as a Latina woman as well as Mexican. Sometimes in applications or any type of document that makes me identify my race I find myself selecting the Black option.  They only give us a limited amount of options and Latina isn't one of them so instead of choosing white I choose Black. In this case I identify myself more with the black option rather than the white. I know Mexicans are considered "white" on paper but the reality is that in real life that is not remotely the truth. We are seen as a minority and are treated different than the "whites" because we don't have  "white privilege".  The definition of White privilege that I liked can be found in an a book called Clinical Supervision Activities for Increasing Competence and Self-Awareness edited by Roy A. Bean, Sean D. Davis, Maureen P. Davey and it can be  defined as the belief that only one’s own standards and opinions are accurate (to the exclusion of all other standards and opinions) and that there standards and opinions are defined and supported by Whites in a way to continually reinforce social distance between groups, thereby allowing Whites to dominate, control access to, and escape challenges from racial and ethnic minorities.”

The evidence found on this video is just reaffirming my own beliefs that race is socially constructed. I also will not call myself Hispanic because that was also socially constructed in fact technically speaking, it was constructed by the government to identify people of Spanish origins. So that is why I choose to identify myself as Latina.

 If I lived in a perfect world I would choose to not classify myself as anything. I would like to identify myself as a person; not as a black, white, Hispanic yellow, purple or orange person.  My race and gender should not matter and should not be used to classify people. I would love for people to be identified by their accomplishments, dedications, and passions. However we do not live in a perfect world, which is why I have learned to embrace being a women and being Latina. I’m happy being me.  It's one thing to believe race does not exist or to act like race does not exist and another thing to acknowledge that it does and that it is very real but to choose to not follow the norm and create a new vision of treating people like you would want to be treated despite race. I choose to acknowledge that it is real but I try and treat everyone the same to the best of my ability.

Apart from understanding that Race is a social contract we still experience discrimination, stereotypes, and prejudices.  Therefore the idea of Race persist because we as a society have adopted this idea that we are all different people and that according to what race we might belong to we have different abilities.The people who have benefited from this and are still benefiting from this are the people in power. The people that have power in politics, which are usually, white males.  The foundation of this country was on the oppression of blacks while at the same time proclaiming we believed that we were all created equal. The presidents were slave owners to say the least. As the video showed the only ones that were benefiting from the dehumanization of the African-American population were the whites. Times have not necessarily changed.  If we look at whose holding office in Congress or in judicial courts we see that the majority are still White males.