What Does “Black” And “White” Look Like Anyway?Posted in Articles, Barack Obama, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2010-04-09 00:51Z by Steven |
What Does “Black” And “White” Look Like Anyway?
Sociological Images: Inspiring Sociological Imaginations Everywhere
2008-10-24
Lisa Wade, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Occidental College
Gwen Sharp, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Nevada State College
These two photos—one of Barack Obama as an adult and one of a young Obama and his Grandfather, Stanley Dunham—are a great opportunity to think a little bit about the social construction of race. Comments from both me and Gwen after the pics.
Lisa: Obama, to my eye, is the spitting image of his grandfather. Yet, we see Obama and Dunham as separate races, members of two categories we see as diametrically opposed, even biologically distinct.
Gwen: I tried a little experiment in class. I put up a photo of adult Obama and I had my students make a list of what characteristics made him identifiably Black, in their view. Every one of them put on their list his nose, lips, and hair, and several made comments about his ears or just that “the combination of all his facial features” was “clearly” Black…
Photo from Mangas Verdes
Read the entire article here.