12 November 2009

Tell Me What You Saw...


In the opening activity to Race & Ethnicity you were shown slides of 15 people and had to determine both their Race and Occupation. Many if not all students were unable to correctly identify 25% of the slides. What does this activity tell a person about how they perceive people of a different race or ethnicity?

28 comments:

kristyna said...

What i learned from that activity we did was that most people precieve other people usually by either what they wear or how they look. Although that isnt the right way, its human nature to precieve people in that way. Most people always assume if someone is of a darker skin that they are African American, but that isnt always the case. People of different colors can be from anywhere around the world. So overall again, what I've learned is that people precieve people by appearance, which may not always be the right way.

JSanterre said...

This activity made me realize the way i view people is not always right. Although the activity was hard, once the answers were given to us they seemed obvious. When you are viewing someone you dont think outside the box and just percieve them based on how they look. I saw people of different races and wasnt sure how to identify them which means i percieve people differently than someone of a different race would.

Shai Hayes said...

In the Opening activity to Race & Ethnicity I had the opportunity to try to guess thirty different peoples race, and occupation. As a total I could have received thirty points, I received nine points. This exercise proved that many people perceive people of a different race or ethnicity based on only physical appearance. However, this exercise proved that a person's race nor occupation can be known by just looking at a physical appearance. However, many people make assumptions about others by what they look like and what they were, even though it is wrong to, but most people do not have enough knowledge to acknowledge the fact that a person's ethnicity nor race can not be determined by physical appearance. For example, Vin Diesel is often perceived as an African American, because of his skin tone, when actually Vin Diesel is African American, Italian American, Cuban, but these ethnicities can not be perceived by physical appearance. Proving that many people’s perception of others are often incorrect because they base their judgment off of physical appearance.

Molly Martin said...

I was surprised by the fact that I was not able to get any of the races correct. Some of them seemed so obvious and turned out to be the opposite ethnicity as expected. Subtle differences in skin color, facial structure and other attributes differentiate ethnicities. I was not alone in my error of guessing the races of the people on the slide, most of the class didn't get them right either. THis really shows that we are not educated on races and that the differences are very discrete.

mfulf10 said...

this activity tells that people percieve others by what they look like or how they are dressed, and we judge peoples occupations by their surroundings or what they are doing. but like kristyna said it human nature to percieve people like that. you arent taught to percieve people in a certain way or even to percieve a person, but its human nature which would take us back to our first chapter nature vs. nurture. ive learned that some people can have a light skin color but be from a race of dark skin people, and nobody should percieve people like that :)

Jane Smith said...

This activity was really an eye-opener for me and I'm sure for many others as well. There are countless amounts of ethnicity combinations and each ethnicity has some similar characteristics both physical and personal. However, many are very similar or even the same as others. This makes it extremely difficult to really point at one race per person since we are all uniquely different and no person looks the same, even if they have the same ethnicity as the next person. As people we're very visual and seeing what people do, what they wear, and what they look like seems to give us clues to what their race is. Although it is human nature, it is wrong of us to think this way since there is no guidelines to what someone must do or look like to be apart of a certain race.

Anonymous said...

While doing this activity, i learned that people precieve what they want to see by how someone else might look, kind of like a stero type. We grew up being told that most people with red hair and freckles were irish and dark skin was african american but that wasnt the case in this "experiment".
Now that i saw what was going on in the slideshow, i figured that i knew most of the races of the people but in the end i only got 8 points right lol and they werent even the race it was all the jobs:] In the end, i thought this was a good way to show people how what you see ISNT really what you get.

melissa m said...

This activity shows that we perceive people greatly on what they wear or how they present themselves. Sometimes you can recognize what race a person is by their physical features like face shape or body built. But if the person is dressed a different way that we do not associated their race with or if they have a different hair style we would never guess their true race.

Cally Allen said...

This activity showed me that it is hard to base and try to judge someone on the way they appear. It was hard for me to try to think of their occupation as well just based on how they looked or dressed. There are many occupations out there and to try to guess someones on the way the dress was very hard to do. Also with their race it was hard because just because someone has dark hair and darker eyes doesnt always mean that they are from Italy or around there. This is just one of the categories we place people with dark hair and eyes in because it was something we grew up to believe. This activity just proved the point that you cannot tell someones race by their appearance just like you cannot tell someones race by looking at their genetic makeup. Also it shows that we should not assume someones race based on their looks.

Patrick S said...

It made it obvious to me that race is a far more complicated issue than many people realize. The idea that one can tell race solely on physical features seems naive, as shown by the activity. I found myself unable to determine the races of many of the people, some of them being wholly unrecognizable. Most of the time my profiling was based on skin color, which indicated that was the first form of racial identity I looked for, something that disappointed me.

mechelle said...

What I have discovered was that when put to the test, I really can’t tell which ethnicity or race someone really is. When each picture came up and I had to write my answer down, I couldn’t write a thing down for any of the pictures; this just comes to show that I can’t tell who a person really is.

BigGriff said...

I learned allot from the opening exercise to this chapter of sociology. For one, i learned how its human nature to guess at people racial backgrounds. We subconciously size up people by their race all the time but this exercise showed me how impractical and useless sizing someone up by their race is. As i quickly learned, it was nearly impossible to guess all of these right. I look at it as a perfect example of how race is only skin deep and when you really boil it down we all look fairly the same. Instead of judging someone on their race and how they look (which is not only impractical but immoral), you should measure a person by their ethnic background. In other words, how they were raised, their beliefs and values, not the color of their skin.

PatrycjaS said...

I was absent on the day we did the activity. But I think that people do may not identify the occupation of a person just because of their skin color. The race cannot be also determined by the color, there are people that are a mixture of races and people still put them in one category. Some people if a majority race has one occupation that the rest of that race population has to have the same occupation as well.
Most people just base and judge the people based on how they look or their physical appearance.

chelsey c said...

This Activity made me think about the way that i veiw people. And that people are not always what they appear to be. Its like the saying that everyone says " don't judge a book by its cover." i do not believe that you can tell what a persons race is or what they do for a living just by looking at them, and doing this activity just made me realize it more. You may look at a person and think you know what there race it and what they do for living but if you go up to them and talk to them you might find out that they weren't really what you thought they were. All in all most people judge other people by what they look like.

Unknown said...

Through this activity i was forced to see the ways which i look at people of all races. Having to guess which race people were is very difficult. Now a day people are mixtures of different races and ethnicities which makes if diffictul for me espically to guess what they are. I think the main purpose of this lesson was to open our eyes to see how we individually and as a class view others and see what judgements we have on people based on their apperances, features, or styles of clothing. Overall people are very judgemental and we judge people based on what we see at first appreance, yet throguh this activity, we now know that you shouldnt be judged on you appreacnce and rather what you believe in and your values.

Kameron said...

What I learned was that you can't always identify the type of ethnicity sombody is by their skin color. Just because a persons complexion is light skinned or white, doesn't mean that they are always just irish, they can also be Native American and they can also have a little afican american in them. I now also believe is that there is no person with just one racial background, we all have another type of ethnic background. For example I am not just African American, and Native American, I am also irish too. This activity just goes to show there is more to a persons racial and ethnical background that meets the eye.

TMarie said...

When we were first presented this activity I was sure that it would be easy to guess a persons race, but I wasn't too sure about a persons occupation. Well going through this activity I deffinetly didn't get the occupation of the people correct and got very few of the races correct.

I really thought this activity was an eye-opener because we can't judge someone by the way they look and guess their races. Especially in todays age because most people have more than one race. Frankly, this judgement that everyone does is very sad and we shouldn't do it at all. It is human nature to us because it is practiced all around us and it really needs to come to an end. If it ever will is the big question?

Daniel M. said...

I think that this activity shows that people think they know about how races an enthnicities look. We think that they can itentify people prejudicly but in reality, we cannot. The fact that everyone guessed mostly wrong, shows that we cannot do this. Yet, we still go about thinking that we can, and we apply our flawed identifying skills to prejudicly judge people we see every day. This is all working against us. People shouldnt be judging people 'by their covers', but they do anyway. Its impossible to tell who a person is just by their phisical appearence. Unfortunatly, people still go about and do this, thinking they are right, never knowing that they are ever wrong.

alyssa*bart said...

This activity was very intersting and I learned a lot. I learned that not to under estimate the color of a person's skin. I saw many people's skin and i was so surprised when i got the answers to what their race really was because I didn't even come close. I also learned not to judge people by their apperance.

michael s said...

I think that most people determine race and ethnicity based on how they look through their skin color. After they have determined the ethnicity based on skin color, they then pick the occupation most associated with the mass jobs a person of that color has if that makes sense? An example is a person who appears to be white, then I make my judgement of their occupation based on the majority of jobs a white person has such as a politician. I learned that people associate race and ethnicity with color, and based on that they associate their job with race and ethnicity.

Toni M said...

This activity showed me that within the first fifteen minutes of meeting or seeing someone you can have a completly wrong impression on them without knowing anything about them. Many people are quick to judge and always seem to think there right. When seeing someone who has dark skin we tend to assume they are African American when it could actually be much more then that, which could offenc some people. This exercise showed me personally that my judgement is not right and putting a label on someone before you know the truth is not a good thing to do. Which showed alot of people are not that aware of racial problems today.

liz tipton said...

This activity tells a person that the way they perceive a person of a different race or ethnicity is not always correct. It shows that just because we see a person in a certain way doesn’t necessarily mean that, that is who they are. Skin color is only on the surface and people are more than just a color. Any person who does this activity does this activity will quickly learn that factor. Although judging a person based on skin color and surroundings is thought to be human nature doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the right thing. People have learned from like kindergarten on not judge a book by its cover, so people shouldn’t judge another person based on solely their skin color. Through this activity I learned that you can not look at a person and see their ethnicity, their occupation, their lifestyle; you can only look at a person and see someone who you can potential get to know.

Vicki Sanborn said...

the opening activity made me realize that race and ethnicity is more complex than we think. our first impressions of another person is based on what our eyes see and applying it to our background knowledge of the common things we have learned each race to be. when we apply our knowledge to the person in front of us means that we ourselves are judging other people because of physical differences. these looks may be correct or may be different than their real ethnic background. i for one got many many many wrong as well as other kids taking the class. this tells us that what you see isnt necessarily what we want or think it really is.

ChristySJ said...

As a result from this activity, i only get a very few right that's because I am only seeing their first appearence. i don't observe them very deeply, and i am sure most us don't becuase it is so hard for a regular person to identify it. i think in my opinion that most of the people do the same thing as me, they just look the common things. things activity completly change my way of viewing people. it also help me to, identify about different peole who were seems different in my view point. i strongly believe that this activity is a great activity.

Yash said...

This activity was fun and interesting. Based i on what i found out about those individuals was very perceiving because my before and after comparison was totally different.In the before category i just identified them by their color, and what they looked like to me. But after when i found out the identification for each individual they were totally different and i know as a human being no one should perceive any individual based on their race, color, or their ethnicity. Everyone needs to also learned that everyone is different and many also come from different part of the world. Different makes it interesting and more enjoyable for me because its fun meet and be social with different types of people. so in general, people should not judge anybody by their color, race, or ethnicity. Rather they should just perceive them by who they are, and what they do.

kelsey said...

In the Opening activity to Race & Ethnicity I had the opportunity guess and distinguish about 30 different people’s race and ethnicities. This exercise proved that many people perceive people of a different race or ethnicity based on only physical appearance. Also, many people make assumptions about others by what they look like, even though it is wrong, but most people do not have enough knowledge to determine the fact that a person's ethnicity or race cannot be determined by physical appearance. And it’s human nature to perceive people in that way. So from this exercise I learned that you can’t tell a person’s race or ethnicity by simply looking at them, they could be from anywhere around the world. You have to look further than just a glance.

Josh Mendes said...

I learned that it is not easy at all to try and guess the race and ethnicity of someone just by looking at their bodily features, especially their face. It's better to just ask the person them yourself what their race is before you try and guess at it because you could be completely off, lik that person that had 4 different races mixed in.

H Futoma said...

During this activity, i wasn't surprised to find it difficult when trying to guess the race/ethnicity of the person in the picture. I was surprised, however, when almost all of my guesses were wrong. This activity proved that we not only identify what we think we know, but that we don't always consider the other possible races a person could be. While we seem to judge people based on their appearance, other qualities such as accents or types of clothing could be a giveaway as well. This activity shows that we can't always identify someone solely on their appearance, though most of us do.