Race is a socially constructed category. Society assigns races to people based on opinionand social experience. If races are socially constructed, then racism must also be an offshoot ofrace and derived from social experiences too. Racism, as defined by Websters New AmericanDictionary, is a belief that some races are by nature superior to others. Why is there racism inAmerica today? There are two distinct schools of thought; the social psychologists and the sociologicaltheorists. There are two social psychological theories. The scapegoat theory, that argueshistorically, members of the dominant group in the United States have harbored variousfrustrations in their desire to achieve social and economic success and vent these frustrations inthe form of anger towards other racial groups (Andersen, Taylor, 291). The authoritarian theoryis characterized by a tendency to rigidly characterize people (Andersen, Taylor, 291). Thesociological theories focus more on institutional racism. Racism appears to be a mixture of the scapegoat, authoritarian, and sociological theories.While majority of the people automatically characterize people into groups, they also have atendency to turn these groups in punching bags. The reason from this may be the detachmentassociated with categorizing people into groups other than your own. Therefore, detachment ofone person from another allows each person to feel able to blame or hate the other withoutfeeling guilt. George Ritzer would argue that Mcdonaldization of society definitely helps tocreate the dehumanization needed to ignite and cultivate racism. Symbolic interaction theorists ague that greater interaction within the groups will reduce racism. If racism is socially constructed, then changing the structure of how society allows only brief andindifferent interactions between people, (curbing the growth of mcdonaldization) will help createa more equal society. ...
