Thursday, November 19, 2009

"Bloodless Genocide"

I found Wald's lecture to be very interesting. I've always thought on the role of race within the world, and understanding the biological and social association with race.

However, it appears, society still has not developed a consistent relationship with the word, 'human being'. Wald mentioned that idea of a "bloodless genocide", which occurs through the process of dehumanization. The very society that is the US, was built upon the dehumanization of one population. Firstly, there was a 'social death' amongst the natives, who were colonized and culturally stripped. Then slavery, of course, involved the process of dehumanization.

Now that we can identify the kind of problematic views on words such as 'race' and 'human', what can be done about it? Will we be able to rid society of the idea of 'race' when it is so built into the foundation of our society. While race is not biological, it is so socially involved with society. And laws that we establish to define the term 'human' within the legal system, thus generating an association between socially invented term and biology. This inhibits society from moving away from the idea of race, and completely changing it, because it is so accepted as a biological construct.

Hopefully we will be able to diffuse the actual word 'race' and actually understand the word has no significance without the social construct that we built around it. There is a racial hierarchy only because we, 'humans', created one.

No comments: