"Race: The Power of an Illusion: The Difference Between Us

In the video screening, “Race: The Power of an Illusion: The House We Live In,” the creator’s thesis is that race is not based on one’s physical appearance and characteristics, but on the laws and practices that affect their life based on the differences between themselves and people of other backgrounds.

The producer of this screening explains the notion that people think that race is based on one’s physical features and these characteristics are what differentiates them from other people. The average person thinks that by looking at a person’s outside appearance, they are also able to understand more about that person. However, according to the video, “Race is not a level of biological division that we find in anatomically modern humans.” It is not something you see for the fact that there are no subspecies of human beings. People of other races, different from what we categorize as whites, are looked at as inferior, such as those who are Mexican, African, or of Chinese descent. People of such backgrounds are those who often hold the worst jobs with the lowest pay. This is not because they can not handle a better job, but because sometimes they are not offered or able to get a job that is of higher standards due to their race. Those immigrants who enter America, in the past and to this date, were thought of as different because of biology, that it was a destiny for them to be of lower class. Even white people who practiced uncommon or frowned-upon religions were thought of as “in-between” people, that they weren’t quite the same as whites. These thoughts, while not as profound as in the past, are still common today and seen in our society in many ways.

One question to think about when it comes to the argument of there still being prejudices revolving around race today as in the past is, will these thoughts and inequalities ever disappear? Sadly, I do not think that they will. As the screening discusses how unfair life has been in the past for races of inferiority, this will probably be the case in the future as well. Although these thoughts have somewhat improved over the years, I don’t think it is possible that they may altogether be erased. The unfair categorization of people of different races is in our ancestry and has been past down from generation to generation, and will continue to do so to generations in the future.

I think this was a great screening in that it provided a good look of how people have been treated in America for years past. It did not only give details of one race or group of people, but of many. It was beneficial how the producer explained the unfair conditions for people of inferior races or different religions and the gradual, yet not significant, improvements over the years. I also enjoyed the way the producer included the idea of the melting pot and how, according to sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, people of different races “could be used as wood to start the fire to heat the pot, but could not be used as material to be melted into the pot,” due to their inferior status.