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Caleb Hanna

Lyndsay Knowles

English 111

13 March 2017

“Race”: More Than Just Skin Color

Race is something that a majority of the population in America is affected by everyday in

one way. In another way it is something that affects a smaller majority of people in America.

Race is a word that has more definitions than I ever realized, I just thought of it with two: cars

and skin color. When you look up the definition of race it gives you more than just two and a

better definition that I can give on the two that I knew before this: The first one it gives you is “a

competition between runners, horses, vehicles, boats, etc., to see which is the fastest in covering

a set course,” this is one that I most associate the word race with since I am into cars and they are

a big part of my life. The second one that it gives is “a strong or rapid current flowing through a

narrow channel in the sea or a river,” which is something that I was completely unaware of and

the third is “each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics,”

and nowhere in this definition does it talk about skin color individually, it just talks about a

distinct characteristic which just to happens to prominently mean skin color.

While race has these three main definitions I was able to find, I have only really

associated it with two out of those three, but race as a physical characteristic is something that I

feel everyone can connect with in one way or another so that definition will be the one that I will

be focusing on in this essay.

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Race, meaning a distinct physical characteristic of a group, is something that has been

prominent in the United States of America since the sixteen hundreds when African Americans

were brought over into Jamestown, Virginia as slaves. The African Americans were enslaved for

one main physical characteristic that was different than the settlers of Jamestown. This

characteristic was not that they had a different face shape, were built different or even that they

tended to have darker hair, it was their skin color. While the fact that they had a different build

and were able to do hard labor was a ‘bonus’ to the kidnapping of these people, the main reason

was the dark color of their skin.

Now before I even said that I am sure that almost everyone knew that the African

Americans were enslaved mostly because they had a darker complexion. In my opinion it is

terrible to enslave someone in any way, especially based on something that they had no control

over. Skin color is caused by a melanin, the pigment in almost everyone’s skin. Melanin is

considered the body’s “natural sunscreen” since the pigment ended up darker or lighter

depending on the amount of sun that person received (humanorigins.si.edu, 2). Those born closer

to the equator have darker skin since they receive more sun, those who were born farther away

were lighter since they received less sun. So just because these people were born in a different

area meant that they were different enough to become someone else’s worker. Fortunately,

slavery was outlawed in 1865 by former president Abraham Lincoln. But even though slavery

ended, life was never the same and is still not the same for the African Americans in America.

While slavery ended some time ago there are still left over affects from it going on today

almost two centuries later. A lot of people today are excluded and treated different because of

their color, as much as legally possible. The amount of racism, prejudice, discrimination, or

antagonism directed against someone of a different race going on in the world today is
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unbelievable. The idea that one’s race is superior to another based on one aspect is unbelievable.

One person is not better than another based off skin color, or really any other physical aspect that

someone cannot control about themselves, is something that needs to be removed from our

society.

On the news you see people claiming that African Americans are being shot and killed by

police officers over the smallest things of even claiming that it was unprovoked. You also hear of

African Americans getting longer sentences for the same crimes that a Caucasian person does.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, approximately 65.4 percent of the

prisoners in the United States that are serving sentences of life without possibility of parole are

African American (ALCU, page 3). While African Americans make up over half of the prisoners

in the United States they only made up about 13.3 percent of the total population in 2016

(Census, Race and Hispanic Origin). Now on the other hand Caucasian’s make up about 17.8

percent of those in prison sentenced to life without parole (ALCU, page3) but made up about

76.9 percent of the total population in 2016 (Census, Race and Hispanic Origin).

One example that I have of this comes from a story that my friend told me. She told me

that her brother, who was very into science, was explaining the theory of evolution to their Nana

who was born in the 1950’s. Their Nana proceeded to exclaim that, “We did not come from

monkeys, maybe black people did but we definitely did not!” I was absolutely amazed by this

when she told me. Now racism is not only in other generations, newer generations also show

signs of it like with newer police officers being accused of committing racist acts towards

colored people. While I am using African Americans as an example they are not the only people

affected by this, they are just a bigger majority of America’s population that is not Caucasian, so

it is heard about and seen more than other people.

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As someone who works with the public I see more ‘silent racism’ going on so to speak.

While nothing is verbally mentioned I see the nasty looks African Americans, Hispanics and

Asians receive when they are in my store for absolutely no reason at all, even the children of

these poor people receive dirty looks when they are too small to even know what racism is and

should not be subjected to it for something that they have no control over. Such hatred is seen

towards these people who have no control over their skin color or where they came from, they

should not be punished for nothing. Racism is something that is embedded in America’s history

and needs to come to an end. These people are the same as us on the inside, they just have a

different skin color and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Just like there is nothing

wrong with any other kind of physical characteristics that people have no control over such as

height and birth defects.

Race used as a negative reference to skin color is one of the main ways I have come to

identify the use of this word because of the society that we live in now-a-days. I hope that one

day it will change, and people will realize that there is no need for distinguishing by race for

negative reasons. But for now, I believe that it might be a while before we start to see any kind of

changes. Change is something that cannot set in overnight, it would take many years maybe even

a few decades to see a major change. There are little things here and there that help to push

discrimination of any kind towards being abolished but it will be a while for anything major.

Race has multiple means that I meet often which is one of the reasons I decided to write

on it. It is also something that people have been affected by daily for centuries. Slavery ended

over 150 years ago, so why is society still acting like it was abolished yesterday? I think that

everyone should take race into mind and realize that it is not just about skin color but everything

about someone whether it be their height, their weight, or even their build. Race is a word that
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had no negative meaning in the definition but has gained a reputation of negativity and exclusion

throughout society.
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Works Cited
Smithsonian Institution. “Human Skin Color Variation” Smithsonian National Museum of

Natural History. Date Posted: Not Provided, Site Last Updated 10 March 2018.

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/human-skin-color-variation/modern-human-

diversity-skin-color

American Civil Liberties Union. “Racial Disparities in Sentencing” Inter-American Commission

on Human Rights. 27 October 2014.

https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/141027_iachr_racial_disparities_aclu_submission_

0.pdf

United States Census Bureau. “Quick Facts: Untied States” United States Census Bureau. 1 July

2016. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045216