My personal opinion. If you don't agree, I don't care.

When asked what the word race means to me, I find I fall short on coming up with a definition that I find “correct.” I don’t exactly know if I feel it is biological or social construct, but rather a combination of both. I believe skin color is biological, a mere skin pigment and gene that determines pale or tan, light or dark. To me, skin color is no different than brown or blue eyes, blonde or brown hair. Where social construction of “race” becomes an issue is when people take the biological disposition for different skin pigmentation and cause it to determine economic status, education level and home address.  Thankfully, as we become more open minded and less ignorant as a whole, we become closer to the understanding that race and ethnic background does not have to determine what neighborhood you are destined to live in and what grade you can accomplish in school. We have all learned at some point about the evils that can come from making race a negative connotation, rather than a simple color, nothing more than a blue or brown eye.

As a society, we place stereotypes based on race, gender and sexuality versus achievement. Using our examples from class, we get messages that African Americans make great athletes, the British need more dental attention and gay men, well they can really dress. I know plenty of fabulous white athlete’s, African Americans with bad teeth and gay men who dress for an 80’s prom on a daily basis. Stereotypes are never really one size fits all. Stereotypes, in my opinion is just ignorance with a fancier name.

When it comes to the separations in race and in gender roles, I sometimes think it is media driven and at other times feel it can be political, influenced by those in power. Our media sends mixed messages that define their ideas of race and gender. Extreme standards of wealth, power and beauty radiate on every magazine I use to subscribe to, nothing good comes from reading about models and actresses I can in no way identify with. There are beautiful, extremely thin Brazilian models on the runway and our first African American president in the white house. I am neither the former nor the latter, so where I fit into the media’s current standards of fame and fortune has me a bit confused. There is always going to be a love and hate relationship with media attention. The media will always push sex and beauty, it sells and we all are guilty with our addiction to tabloids and Entertainment Tonight. It is a personal responsibility to determine the moral standard you set for allowing negative racial and gender media messages to influence your actions.