When it all comes down to it everyone has their prefernces of what kind of person the or rather what ethnicity they like most. Racial relationships in the United States have been very strained dating back as far as the introduction of colonization. The question is now of course what make one race or ethnicity better than another. In other words which race is infrior to whom? Is there a such thing as a “inferior” race? The common components of measuring one’s superiority within mainstream society are; how much capital do you possess, how connected are you socially to influectianl people and the amount of representation you have in the political realm. History tells us that whites within our nation as the majority, most socially and economically prosperous and most politaclly represented are the dominat race within America. Yet does this mean that all minorities are inferior them? How is supremacy among the remaining minorities determined? Who gets to make those determinations and what are thier basis behind them?
Since this nation begun as a nation founded by the “white man” for the “white man” the system that society functions in, is set up in a way that it only allwos a certain percent of minorities to accumulate the type of wealth and social standing that their wwhite counterparts have. Even so there are still discrepansasies between the opportunites offered to whites compared to minorities in addtion to their methods of climbing the soical ladder. In essence relfecting back on the ideal that in the world of business and politics that “its not what you know, its who you know.” As a general rule most historians agree that the determination of race superiority as determined by whites in the 1700-1800s was based upon how dark the skin tone was. Native American as landowners were superior to slaves because they hand discovered how to work their land, as well as devolped their own separate systematic societies. They were seen as comparable to white men with brown skin. Slaves on the other hand weren’t seen as men and women in the general sence, first and foremost they were property, secondly they were black and gender came as a bargaining chip and deal breaker during most of the auctions. As property slaves weren’t an ctual part of society and although there was a free colored population during the slave era, these individuals were commonly the offspring of intra-racial marriages between blacks, whites, American Indians and individuals European descent.
Today of course race superiority is not strictly based on just the color skin, notions have supremact end to lean toward which nationality has been in America the longest. Most minorities view white as white, whether you have strong European ancestry or not, you are viewed as a white person based off the color of skin. It could be argued that American Indians should be the top group becasue they were the original residents of this nation, but due to all the factors that accounted for the millions of death within this group, American Indians now make up less than 1% of the Unisted States’ population, have little political representation, social standing, and exempting those who work in the casion business are considerable impoverished. Thus sicne they don’t have the necessary factors in order to be considered higher in position, they actually fall just below whites depending upon, the basis of capitol and skin color. African Americans who have had to travel mush further compared to American Indians up the social and economic ladder are only considered number two or three on the “superiority list” in terms of extnent of time in America. In terms of skin color they are second to last, Middle Eastern or Muslim being the last due to the events of 9/11 which fueled mass discrimination against hem. Latinos, which is considered an ethnicity and not a race can either be black or white and thus have more social standing than blacks which place them higher on the supremacy scale. Asains who have encountered vast amounts of economic wealth in this country have the capital, and social standings that place them underneath the Latino population but still before blacks on the ladder.
In truth I don’t view the “superiority list” as anything other than a marker for the type of racial constructions that the media, and culture have influenced. Race is really just a concept used by society to label the distinctions between people. By giving a person who looks a certain way a title in essence you have created an identity that is to be associated with that person, their children, grandchildren and anyone else has similarities with them. For example slanted eyes is considered to be a common trait among all Asain nationalites, thus if your white with slanted eyes, it can be assumed that you have Asian ancestry. I believe that the whites of the past created these titles for people who they felt did not share enough similarites with them or they considered to be lower grades of people compared to them (American Indians). They gave them these titles in order to ensure their dominace and taught them that “this was who you are.” Basically saying that you are not a man as I am, you are a Black man, and defining the difference between the two.
J. Dxion
myeugenic 