Wow, I managed to score a 20%. While taking the quiz I thought it was easy. I was like, 'wow this is pathetic!' and 'haha, I'm gonna be the only one to score a 100%, in your FACE!'. But then I woke up. Of the 20 qeustions I only answered four correct. In dismay about my report I looked into the personal bios' of the pictures. They were outrageous! Almost all the pictures were people classifying themselves as their long lost ancestors, anything but ordinary. In fact, these people are what I believe to be the exceptions of Census's profiling methods and that the 'Sorting People Quiz' was designed to make people fail in order to promote the 'Race doesn't exist' theory. By devising the quiz to make people fail, the quiz makers are creating a superiority over the quiz takers, further advancing their idea as 'right'. Therefore, my test score is not an accurate depiction of my ability to determine 'race'.
Furthermore, the publisher and promoter of the 'Race doesn't exist theory' is PBS, an American public television broadcasting service, primarily funded by whom? CPB, a private non-profit corporation created by an act of United states congess and largely funded by the United States Government. Moreover, this idea coincidently explains a need for the 11.3 billion dollar budgit the Census 2010 will need for hand held computing devices. Now, what does that sound like to you? Propaganda. In short, the 'Race doesn't exist theory' is a Obama induced propaganda tactic to explain to educated americans why Census 2010 will cost an estimated 4.8 billion dollars more than Census 2000.
Information found on http://www.censusscope.org/ and wikipedia: PBS, CPB, and 2010 Census.
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You are correct to identify the website's agenda -- but it's not a secret. It's teaching agenda is given away in the title. Do you think this agenda is not aligned with science? The point is, after all, not to make quiz taker's feel stupid but to illustrate the fact that race is strongly associated in people's mind with appearance. We know appearance to be determined by genetics. So we easily jumpt to the conclusion that race must be based on genetics and be a scientific category. If race does exist as a category, where and how does it exist if not in appearance?
ReplyDeleteIf you continue with your research, you will find that this PBS website actually predates the Obama administration. That is, it existed prior to the 2008 election. Check the date; does this affect the certainty with which you have come to view this as propaganda related to census policy? Let me know.
Also, I'm curious, how proving that race doesn't exist would create a need (or help those who sought to make the case for one, anyway) for more expensive data collection efforts. If anything, how might proving that race doesn't even exist promote an agenda for a greatly streamlined census? For what purpose is the census required by law, to be taken? How does collecting data about race align (or not align) with that original purpose? You have issued thorough challenges to the quizmakers -- in what way have you challenged your own thinking? Why or why not?
ReplyDeleteComment on Lawson's comment 1:
ReplyDeleteIn my mind, and I believe others, the race of a person is determined by the physical characteristics of that person in contrast to ethninticity. Ethninticity is the actual ancestorial lineage of the person.
Comment on Lawson's comment 2:
ReplyDeleteWow, that does make sense. However, I believe the issue that caused this muddle was word choice. While, as I assume, use race in the sense of ethninticity, while I use it in the sense of public image. Furthermore, that was how I choose to project my arguement, and also the reason why I am upset with the Census 2010 allowing individuals to 'select' their ethninticity, some thing that should be a given.
Hi Tara,
ReplyDeleteI loved your post!! You rock girl :)
Wow! Great post! :D
ReplyDeleteWhy should it be a given? It's not a scientific category. It's not based in DNA or genetics but in human thought and perception and experience. What is the basis for your assertion that race IS one thing? Might it possibly be the case that you have just learned to think about it this way and grown comfortable with your perception? The fact is, you may continue to think it IS a real category grounded in appearance. But here's the deal -- it's not grounded in appearance because of gentics or DNA. Science has no way to sort people because no clean packaged definite categories exist for human raw material which is, you recall, less differentiated than fruit flies. So, if you realize (rather than ASSERT) that in your own mind, race IS about appearance or, as you write, "public image" then you must also consider the possiblity of realizing that it's grounded in perception (yours) not hard science facts that are beyond dispute -- or, as you write, something that should be "a given". Census workers, with whatever tools, under whatever administration,(this is NOT new to 2010) do their work understanding that when they ask a question like "what race are you?" they are asking a question about a person's thinking, culture, ethnicity, heritgage, and experience (because that IS what race, the sociological category, IS). Why should the results of that kind of survey be unsatisfactory? Why do you feel that one ought to have the right to say, categorically, what a person IS, rather than letting a person say so for themselves? We can no doubt have a very interesting discussion about when, why, and how, this information became important to census takers, but meanwhile, questions about race can't yield anything other than information about perception and experience, not blood. As you and I discussed, me may think many things that are not scientific or grounded in evidence, and some things, such as love, or faith, may still be quite "TRUE" but we when speak of those things, we do so knowing we are in the land of faith and perception. It affects the way (respectful, hopefully) we talk with one another about things that are personal. And typically, unless we're a militant extremeist, or just a really dogmatic person, we aren't surprised or troubled by the fact that other people have different views. It's kind of the nature of something like "faith." So, if you take the race thing on faith, as you appear to, then at least consider recognizing that is so.
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