The Social Construction of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture

In the twentieth century, no countries have been more obsessed with race than the United States, South Africa, and Nazi Germany. In their obsession with race as the most distinguishing characteristic of different groups, social scientists, leading intellectuals, and politicians in these three societies have systematically classified people according to phenotypical traits such as skin color, hair type, and facial features. In the process, they have distorted this pseudoscientific concept in order to create and maintain a social hierarchy, cultural hegemony, political dominance, and a system of socioeconomic subordination based on the presumed natural superiority of those individuals classified as “white.”