Multicultural Psychology Class: Documentary Analysis

For many individuals race is just a term used by society to briefly describe individuals different from one’s self. However, the actual term race refers to the a socially constructed concept based on prevailing social and political attitudes, and is often used to express ambiguous distinctions, promote dominance of certain privileged groups, and oppress groups that are deemed inferior (Oranista, Marin, Chun, 2010). Race and how it is viewed by many individuals living in the United States was tackled in a short documentary viewed by the Multicultural Psychology class, and it shows that not every individual view racial differences the same. The young man that made the documentary tried to point out the cons of using the term race to describe individuals. However, it is important to take time to look at both the pros and the cons to the use and history behind the term race. History has not always …show more content…
For many being part of their racial group is what makes them unique, and many individuals would like to keep it that way. For example, I love being seen as a strong African American women and I have a few classmates that are Hispanic that feel the same way about their racial group. Taking that identity away from us would force us to give up what makes us different. One of the main points in the short racially motivated documentary was to not fit into any box or label, but if the racial label was removed how would individuals be able to track down their ancestry history? How would individuals be able to describe who they are? If racial labels were removed would the dominate group find some other label to place us under? Therefore, is the label of race the problem or is the problem the negative stigma that is placed along with race? The young man in the short documentary do not want to be placed in any racial group because race is only what individuals can see about you from the