Is Race More Than A Social Construction? In the article Is Race Political?, Debra Thompson seeks to prove that there is definitely a lack of emphasis on the impact of race in English Canadian political science compared to other social sciences. Thompson does this by providing many reasons to why she believes there is a concerning silence. She concludes by suggesting that race is more political than we realize.
Thompson starts off by purposing that although it is common to believe that race is a social construction, we must understand that the state itself has played a huge part in the process of creating racial identities. According to Debra Thompson (2008) Canada established “race regimes” when the settlers came and aimed to strip …show more content…
Since the definition is always changing, it makes it hard for scholars to correlate it with politics. Therefore, explaining the low amount of publications of this subject.
Thompson concludes the article by believing she has successfully proved that race should be seen as a political construction. She lets the audience know that her goal is to open the eyes of interest groups and parliamentarians and make them see the relation between the two. She believes once they do that, they have created a starting point in political science.
Although Thompson has made valid points, I personally disagree with her. When she discusses the idea of race being more than a social construction she is neglecting the fact that race is not biological. Over the years society has given privileges to people based on the color of their skin. It is society that has prolonged the idea of it mattering and playing a part in everyday life. She also determines how race is under researched in political science by looking at the percentage of publications on the topic which does not make sense. There were many limitations to that study. One being that the study only focused on the quantity of the journal articles rather than the quality of the actual writing. In my opinion she did not justify her point with strong
Thompson starts off by purposing that although it is common to believe that race is a social construction, we must understand that the state itself has played a huge part in the process of creating racial identities. According to Debra Thompson (2008) Canada established “race regimes” when the settlers came and aimed to strip …show more content…
Since the definition is always changing, it makes it hard for scholars to correlate it with politics. Therefore, explaining the low amount of publications of this subject.
Thompson concludes the article by believing she has successfully proved that race should be seen as a political construction. She lets the audience know that her goal is to open the eyes of interest groups and parliamentarians and make them see the relation between the two. She believes once they do that, they have created a starting point in political science.
Although Thompson has made valid points, I personally disagree with her. When she discusses the idea of race being more than a social construction she is neglecting the fact that race is not biological. Over the years society has given privileges to people based on the color of their skin. It is society that has prolonged the idea of it mattering and playing a part in everyday life. She also determines how race is under researched in political science by looking at the percentage of publications on the topic which does not make sense. There were many limitations to that study. One being that the study only focused on the quantity of the journal articles rather than the quality of the actual writing. In my opinion she did not justify her point with strong