Post-Reading Questions for Week 2

• Your peers are putting forth some really interesting responses on their blogs-please begin to read them and comment on them.

If you had to come up with your own definitions for race and ethnicity what would they be?

Did your understandings of race and/or ethnicity change from your pre-reading response? If so, how?

Race and ethnicity can have many meaning in this country. What do you think leads to this confusion? 

Does everyone have the right to self-identity their own race and ethnicity? Why might this be?

What are the connections, if any,  between these concepts and racism or oppression?

What might be the differences between racism and ethnocentrism (pg.32 for the definition of ethnocentrism)

The film states that we (as a society) often believe that race is biological. The example that cites throughout is that of sports; some races are biologically designed to be more athletic. Can you think of any examples from your own experience that link biology and race?


Using the definitions from Cornell and Hartmann, what would your race, ethnicity and nationality be (in the context of the United States). Do you feel that these definitions do accurately describe how you would identify yourself? Why or why not?

What are some of the racial complexities described in the Abdulrahim and the Strum texts? Please explain how they are examples of any of the following concepts: race as a social construct, race/ethnicity as changing over time, racial identification as linked to power and oppression.

Buzzfeed's List of 34 Celebrities You Would Never Guess Had 'Mixed Heritages"

Racialicious- 4 Ways that the Buzzfeed Article missed the Mark

 What assumptions about race, ethnicity and nationality does the author of the Buzzfeed list have? (Don't just list the assumptions that Raciaclicious puts out there- please think about how their labels correspond or don't correspond with the definitions we spoke about in class)

As we were going through the list in class; many of the students expressed shock or surprise at some of the labels in the slideshow. Why were we surprised by some of their heritages? Try comparing what we think they 'are' or 'should be' to what the website thinks that they are.