The concept of race is not only contentious but also subjective. It is a social construct that varies depending on the person or the society to which the race question is addressed. Across the country, individuals have differing perceptions and understandings of race. The results of the 20 adults survey confirm this position. Naturally, if something is factual, it cannot be perceived differently from one person to the other. No one can deny that someone who is 40 years old is an adult because it is a fact. However, the idea of race shows a different conceptualization of identity, which seems to change from one society to another.
This mixed understanding of race explains why 6 of the 20 participants in the survey viewed it as something only made real by convention. Further, five out of the six could not identify with any race. Four said they were “human”, while one, Participant VF, clarified that he had no race list and could not answer when asked about his race. According to the responses of the five participants, race is subjective and should not be an identifier that tells people apart. The participants believe that if there were something called “race” as a form of identity, then it would be “the human race”. To them, only one thing is certain: they are human, and the concept of skin color is a matter of perspective. This mirrors the assertions of Justin D. García in his contributions to the topic “Race and Ethnicity”. According to García (2020), race is a discredited concept in human biology, and the element of skin colour is a pigment that varies over geographic space, with skin becoming gradually lighter the further the individuals live from the equator. Therefore, those who view others in terms of “Black”, “White”, “Latinx”, or “Asian” among others are using people’s skin color to separate them; an element that changes depending on their understanding of skin color. I believe the responses of the six participants are informed by their belief that race does not make sense.
Out of the six participants who perceived race as a social construct, four were aged between 30 and 43 years old. The finding points to the fact that individuals are becoming more liberal in their perception of race and changing their perspective of identity based on skin color. Such a position can be associated with the idea that millennials may have a different understanding of race from the earlier generations based on the events that have transpired in the political space. According to García (2020), the government’s attempt to classify individuals by race has continued to receive opposition in the recent past, including the unsuccessful attempts by the American Anthropological Association to advocate for a cessation of federal efforts to classify Americans by race coercively. Successful or not, these attempts teach a different way of thinking, making participants from the mentioned age group develop an attitude that is less inclined toward race.
Another pattern from the survey is the attitude of females toward race. Four of the five participants who did not identify with any race were female. García (2020) clarifies that gender is one of the factors that affect one’s attitude toward race. The survey confirms the author’s position because all the participants who said they were “human” as opposed to identifying with any race were female. I believe this response comes from the idea that women are more emotionally expressive, and even more specifically, as mothers, women are more inclined toward the goodness of all, which demonstrates an inclusive attitude. Black, White, Asian, and Hispanic emerged as the dominant races. Even though only one participant identified as Asian, 11 participants, including ten who are not Asians, listed it among the races that they know. Black was the most “known” race from the survey. It was listed by 16 participants as one of the races, with 10 of the participants, including 3 Whites, mentioning “Black” as the first race they knew. This result clarifies that, among the participants, there was a more positive attitude towards the black race than other races listed in the survey. One of the participants, Participant PD, could not identify any other race apart from the one she identified with, Black. Even though it was not a part of the questions, the result indicates that either the black race is more conspicuous or the participants have heard of it more than other races.
A unique finding emerged from the survey. Eleven out of the 20 participants listed Hispanic/Latino as a racial group. According to García (2020), the US government, under the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Directive 15, classified five official racial categories including White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, as a basis for recordkeeping and demographic information. The provision, which was created in 1977, established the Hispanic/Latino category as a separate ethnic group but not a race. Based on the directive, one is Hispanic/Latino if they are of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, irrespective of their race (García, 2020).
Nevertheless, 11 participants from the survey, including the three aged 32, 31, and 40 years old, who were born after the directive was established, still listed the ethnic category as a race. Further, the survey clarifies that apart from White and Black/African American, other races are not as clearly defined to the best understanding of the respondents. From the results, some participants identified Korean, Arabic, Mexican, and Middle Eastern as racial groups. Noteworthy, none of the participants who mentioned these groupings as a race listed them as their race. This finding clarifies the attitude of indifference that the participants have toward other races apart from White and Black, which they identified very quickly and with ease.
Noteworthy, the survey did not produce any pattern in terms of ethnic backgrounds. The participants who identified with their race either stated that they were Black or White, with two identifying as Latino and Asian. The other five did not indicate any race, although one said her race was “human”, but her ethnicity was white. In their responses, each participant had a unique list, either in terms of the order in which they mentioned the races, based on recall, the number of the races they knew at the time of the survey, or the way they referred to them. I observed the responses I did because when it comes to race, nothing is clearly defined. García (2020) asserts that race reflects a subjective concept that societies use to create and that “Racial categories and the meaning of race are given concrete expression by the specific social relations and historical context in which they are embedded” (213). Therefore, every participant had a different attitude toward race. The survey also hints at the idea that people can find more commonalities in their perspectives if race is not a part of the conversation. For instance, the only group in the survey that had the most conspicuous similarity in their listing was the one that did not identify with any race. I believe the outcome of the survey clarifies that one’s attitude toward race is shaped by one’s understanding of what “race” means