Race, Stereotyping, and Socially-Constructed Knowledge

[Dialectic]

Introduction

Discussion on racism and stereotyping can be found everywhere: from schools to news programs to internet forums. Rarely, however, do we find clear and comprehensive explanations of race itself. The following are some comments on the nature of race, stereotyping, and socially-constructed knowledge. I make four proposals:

1) That “race” is a complex phenomenon which must be seen contextually, not merely, for example, biologically or socially.
2) That notions of race, nationality, and ethnicity vary across cultures, some of which have “differentiated” views and some of which do not.
3) That to classify race as a “social construct” without any intrinsic objective reality is to fundamentally misunderstand race, propagating a dangerous subjectivist stance.
4) That stereotyping is in itself a natural function of a healthy mind which cannot and should not be prevented; rather, it is only harmful when it is misapplied.

“Race”

The notion of racial identity is being discussed everywhere: in politics, schools, media, law, and the arts. At first, questions like, “What is Black?” What is “Asian?” What is “Asian-American?” seem obvious, even trivial, something only people completely disconnected from real life would consider.

When we start looking at details, however, when we start trying to make laws and policy and change system, we realize that unless we have a deep understanding of just what “race,” is, we will fail in our endeavors, and perhaps even do more damage.

“Race” is a complex issue. Any true understanding of racial identity must encompass, at minimum, the following considerations:

a) Biological and behavioral: genetics, appearance (phenotype), conscious and unconscious behavior
b) Systems: political (i.e. citizenship), educational, economic
c) Mental: self-identity (how you perceive yourself), thoughts, feelings
d) Cultural: language, values, “other-identity” (the way others treat you)

Let’s use an example of the “pure” Chinese person. To be purely and unquestionably Chinese, you would have to fulfill all of the following criteria:

a) Have Chinese parents, be of Chinese ancestry, look Chinese, fit within Chinese genetic and behavioral norms.
b) Be a Chinese citizen, be educated in the Chinese system, participate in the Chinese economy.
c) Consider yourself Chinese, think in Chinese (in cases where thoughts take the form of language), feel Chinese/ a connection to “Chineseness.”
d) Understand, speak, possibly read/write some form of Chinese, have collectivist/ filial/ pragmatic Chinese values, be treated by others (both Chinese and non-Chinese) as Chinese.

(Please also note that I have used a “Chinese” example as opposed to an “Asian” example. Asians in Asia do not generally identify with “Asianness” though they recognize a certain “Oriental” or “Eastern” identity: they identify with their particular nationality or type of “Asianness” i.e. Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc. The issue of an “Asian” identity - not just, say, an economic prosperity zone - has arisen only in immigrant, and particularly, North American discourse with any significance.)

So if you fulfill all the criteria listed above, there’s pretty much no question that you are Chinese. No one is going to be able to really argue that point. Ambiguity and fuzziness set in, however, when only some of those criteria are met. Here is where debate on “spectrums” of identity and “grey areas” begins, and it is in this space where the immigrant, where the “Asian-American” resides.

What if you’re half-white, look totally white, but feel Japanese? What if you’re wholly Korean “by blood” but don’t know a thing about the culture, the language, have never been to Korea, don’t want anything to do with old world issues, and have only known white Americans your whole life? What if your knowledge of English and Classical history is better than that of all of your friends, you’re not particularly good at Chinese, but you only go to Asian parties? What if you’re Chinese, largely uninterested in Chinese culture, and opt to learn Japanese instead? What distinguishes a 1.5 generation HK Chinese-American from a FOB? What distinguishes a 3rd generation Korean-American from her grandmother?

The notion of race is a complicated thing, and simplistic ideas of it, like basing it on just physical appearance or just self-identity can be misleading and dangerous. Race has to be understood in biological, cultural, economic, relational, and psychological contexts.

[Dialectic]

Differentiated and undifferentiated identities

This brings us now to the idea that, when seen in their full contexts, not all notions of race are “equal.”

Some forms of racial identity are “differentiated” from notions of culture, religion, and ethnicity, and some are “undifferentiated.” The meaning is simple: some types of national/ ethnic identity can’t be separated from race and religion, and some can.

For example, I have a friend who is of East Indian descent and comes from a Shia Ismaili Muslim family. He has no Muslim beliefs or behaviors, and is pretty much not religious: he eats pork, doesn’t pray, doesn’t read the Koran, knows no foreign languages, and gets freaked out when he sees Muslims praying in the stairwells of large office buildings. Yet he self-identifies as Muslim, simply because he is “Muslim” “by blood.” He is not alone in this. We in North America are taught, however, that being “Muslim” is solely a religious identity, not a racial identity. Is this totally true?

Similarly, ask yourself, can any black, white, brown, or indeed, Chinese person, ever be considered “Japanese”? Can a black, Indian, or Asian person ever be “Italian”?

And of course, can people of African, Indian, or Asian descent be Americans? Some might argue that we are not “as American” as whites, but we can certainly be American to some extent, both nominally and constitutionally.

So what’s going on here?

In North America, race, culture, religion, and nationality have been largely differentiated from one another. Your status in one category does not automatically define your status in the others. In most other countries in the world, these notions are fused, or undifferentiated: race, nationality, culture, and religion are all tied up together, and if you take away one, you destabilize the entire identity. Even if a Korean grows up in Japan, speaks perfect Japanese, has known only Japanese culture her whole life, she will never be Japanese. The same goes for any “foreigner” in most of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and parts of Europe. The notion of a differentiated identity, the idea that you can be American or Canadian or British or Australian no matter where you’re from, or what you look like, or what “blood” you carry, is a rare and precious phenomenon not to be taken for granted, and not easily understood in much of the world. This is in fact a major source of problems and miscommunications when people from differentiated and undifferentiated racial backgrounds interact. If you think you have trouble convincing people you’re American in America, try doing it Eastern Europe or Africa.

Socially-constructed knowledge

There is a school of thought that views race as a “social construct.” This means that race is “constructed” by people in a society: it exists because people agree that it exists. (This is not, incidentally, the way “social construct” is necessarily defined by all academic “social constructionists,” but is the definition by which the term is popularly understood.) There are people, including very prominent social and race theorists, who believe that race should be understood primarily in terms of relationships: as subjective or inter-subjective realities.

This is, in my view, dangerous, because it dismisses the objective aspects of race: that it also has physical, biological, and objective reality.

First, all knowledge is indeed “socially-constructed,” insofar as all humans are parts of cultures and societies which inform how they think, how they act, how they view the world, and how they recognize and develop knowledge. Saying that all knowledge is socially-constructed, however, does not mean that there exists no objective reality.

We might, for example, look at the branch of knowledge we call mathematics. We cannot “find” mathematics out there in the world: no one can point me to a variable, or a denominator, or a matrix hanging around in nature. You could point me to a physical symbol that represents a variable, or a denominator, or a matrix, but what it represents is a concept: and concepts can only be found in the mind. They can only be found in the subjective or intersubjective domains. Does this mean, then, that mathematics is “socially constructed”? Does it exist only because we agree that it exists? Can we change it on a whim? Is there any conceivable universe where (a+b) does not equal (a+b)? Or is there also some objective component to mathematics? Yes, we use certain culturally-defined symbols. Yes, our approach to mathematics is grounded in Western rationalism and hypothetico-deductive reasoning developed by European men. Given that mathematics is only found in the mind, does this mean that it only applies to people who are part of European and North American culture? Or does it apply universally, to everyone?

We see, then, that simply because all knowledge is socially-constructed, or more accurately, contains a socially-constructed component, that does not imply that all knowledge is purely subjective. If it were, all knowledge would be effectively meaningless, as it would only be locally applicable. It is in fact impossible to be purely subjective: remember that when someone tells you that all knowledge is local, relative, culturally-bound, that they are imposing universal, absolute, culturally-transcendent meaning on you.

We now turn to race. We know that race does not have the strong biological reality that Europeans ascribed to it a century or so ago. We know that we are all humans, that none are genetically “superior” or “inferior” to each other, and that given healthy genetics and the right environment and upbringing, our potential for physical and intellectual development is vast, regardless of race. At the same time, we know there is some biological basis for recognizing “genetic clustering”: certain “genotypes” vary in frequency across populations and react differently to pharmaceuticals; certain peoples require different diets, respond differently to atmospheric conditions, and incline toward different physiological defects as they age. There is no doubt that certain genetic patterns give rise to certain general physical characteristics (”phenotypes”), which is why you can be reasonably sure that if you and your spouse are of Chinese descent, your baby will look Chinese, too. We know that groups can be distinguished by recognizing general patterns in their objective behavior, and even if one refuses to acknowledge “race,” it is still possible to recognize types of behavior in a population if they are pointed out objectively, regardless of one’s relationship to the population or one’s cultural milieu.

Race is both a subjective and an objective affair. It does have a socially-constructed component, it is partially defined by relationships, but it also has an observable, objective component, something much of the world, incidentally, would not deny. To put forth the idea of race as purely a social construct is to imply that it is arbitrary; that if we could simply think differently and erase notions of patterns and groups from our minds, race would no longer exist. Not only is this impossible - recognizing and responding to patterns in groups, both ethnocentrically and rationally, is a normal, healthy part of development - but it is incorrect: “race” would still exist, because certain observable patterns would still fall along racial lines, and it would hurt us not to acknowledge those patterns.

I might also add that, if we were to follow the extreme form of social construction reasoning, the idea of a “social construct” would in itself be a social construct: it would thus be rendered as meaningless, arbitrary, and negatable as a purely socially-constructed notion of race.

[Dialectic]

Stereotyping

Given that humans are capable of recognizing and responding to patterns, behavioral or otherwise, it would seem that this process of “stereotyping” is not only inevitable, but desirable.

Stereotyping, as it is popularly understood, is perceived negatively, as a harmful, undesirable process. I believe that this attitude is dangerous. Stereotypes cannot be fought or eradicated. They are a natural function of human cognition. They are a good thing.

A stereotype is a recognition of a perceived pattern. It is a generalization of characteristics which manages complexity and offers opportunities to both identify with and distinguish oneself from others. We could not navigate the world without it. This applies to “negative,” “neutral,” and “positive” conceptions of races, genders, sexual preferences, political stances, and any other category in which a pattern can be perceived. They will form naturally in the individual and collective consciousness.

Problems arise when stereotypes are unfounded or misused. They appear to be harmful conceptual constructs when they are applied by a closed mind. When interacting with individuals, it is perfectly acceptable to hold a stereotype of that individual’s group in one’s mind; indeed it is unavoidable. What is not acceptable is to attribute stereotypical characteristics to that individual without factual evidence, or to continue to apply a stereotype to a person when there is evidence to the contrary. People must be treated and respected as individuals. The damage a stereotype can cause occurs not in its creation or the acknowledgement of its existence, but rather, its incorrect application to individual circumstances.

A stereotype, then, is a convenient and necessary tool with which we may navigate a complex world. Like any tool, it can be misused, and of course it often is. This can be prevented with flexibility, an open-minded approach to people and situations, and a desire to continuously expand our awareness of both self and other.

Conclusion

I believe that understanding these four proposals gives us a viable way out of the current chaos dominating political and racial discourse. Advocates of subjective and objective, pluralist and rationalist, liberal and conservative stances, need to find a meeting place: a common ground from which all of their various truths and views are acknowledged and respected, and from which they can move forward together. A comprehensive and contextual understanding of race, and a balance between subjective and objective viewpoints, provides us with that ground.