Color dichotomy vs. the ethnoracial pentagon Essay

Through erupt the Statesn politics, 2 in particular well k flatn categorizations of bucket along and ethnicity have arisen Color Dichotomy and the later on Ethno-racial Pentagon. Each seeks to define and categorize the vast racial diversity America prides itself on. While intending to progress to clear and fair ethno-racial constructions, there argon unequivocal advantages and weak spots to each for the purposes of analyzing American politics.An old-fashi iodined and little common method of categorization is the Color Dichotomy. This concept distinguishes both complementing counterparts to every location in terms of step on it and ethnicity duster and nonwhite (people of color). In the US, about 75% of Americans identify as white, while about 25% of Americans identify themselves as nonwhite. Applying this construct to other(a) dividing barriers among people, other categories appear such as oppressor vs oppressed, Hegemon vs. other, and dominant allele vs. minority. The main advantage of this concept is in its simplicity. By having only two dividing categories, everyone could conceivably fit neatly into one of these two categories.Collapsing an incredible quantity of diversity of culture into one all encompassing colored category, besides this framework obviously contains numerous problems. Thousands of differences between many plys and culture atomic number 18 consecutively ignored. all distinctions between various colored peoples ar less significant than the fact that they are nonwhite (Hollinger 25). It could to a fault be argued that even the white category collapses many different gunstocks into a bland and stereotypical title. The like a shot ignorance present at bottom this specimen leads to its un commonplaceity within American politics especially.The ethno-racial pentagon challenges this model by supplying strong cultural content. In contrast to the two divisions within the color dichotomy, the ethno-racial pentagon provides fiv e much specific categorizations of race/ethnicity Euro-American, Asiatic American, African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Indigenous Peoples/Native American. To be sure, a shelter of the pentagon is its capacity to call attention to a certain range of societal and cultural diversity (Hollinger 25). The pentagon also keeps some simplicity, however, so that people are easily categorized for the purposes of affirmative actionetc. Although this framework is moreattentive to the differences in the nonwhite group of the Color Dichotomy, it also still retains analogous problems of ignoring certain races or collapsing many together into one. All of these ethno-racial blocs have discriminable diversities which are ignored in order to be jammed into one category or another. Least apparent is the diversity within the Euro-American bloc, or whites. Indeed, Jews, who are now considered Euro-American/white, used to be considered a different race altogether.The Irish and the English, between which existed the vehement tension of conflict and oppression, are now thrust together under the same category with the ethno-racial pentagon. The internal diversity within the Asian American group (Koreans, Cambodians, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japaneseand all of the consequent subgroups) moldiness be quietly faded in order to nonplus the category a unit ignoring such tension between Koreans and Japanese for example. Another bloc in which the condensation of ethnic diversity is also less obvious is that African American bloc. The specific country of origin and culture within the African American bloc is forgotten or ignored as inconsequential.Key to this objection is the one- inclination rule. This rule takes that one drop of African American blood in a individual designates that person African American regardless of their other ethnicity(ies). This rule obviously exists to maintain the existence of the African American category without the complications of recognizing white mix ing (or other races). This gives the gross impression that African American blood is tainted, infectious, and overpowering.Besides ignoring differences within blocs, another major problem with the ethno-racial pentagon is the exclusion of Arab Americans and multiracial people. According the pentagon, Arabs do not even exist in the US. Multiracial people must either recognize only one of their heritages and ignore the other, or choose not to be included under the pentagon. Both of these groups threaten to travel the pentagon into a hexagon. However, even this conformation would be unsuccessful as multiracial people are not necessarily part of their own racial group, but two or more. Ignoring their legitimate ethnicities to create a saucily bloc which only recognizes the fact that they are multiracial, and not their individual races, would create further problems. These visibly unfair factors continue to weaken the foundation supporting(a) the ethno-racial pentagon.The ethno-racial pentagon furthermore places a strong and unnecessary emphasis on race as a dividing factor. Identifying an individual as one race or another brings excessive attention on the differences that could potentially separate Americans if these barriers are continually exaggerated and stressed. Interracial relationships are ignored with both systems. However, from a biological perspective, race can almost be ruled out as inconsequential. The genetic variation from one race to another is just now greater than the genetic variation between races (Hollinger 34). Morever, Hollinger claims If the classical race possible action of the nineteenth century is not directly behind the pentagon, this structures architecture has its unmistakable origins in the most gross and invidious of popular images of what makes human beings different from one another (32). Overall, the two frameworks for categorization of ethnicity and race contain too many internal weaknesses to be used efficaciously and fai rly in American politics.