Apparently something similar just happened in New Jersey earlier this month where elementary school students were given an "
assignment [that] listed “a poster for a lecture, speech, protest or slave auction” as examples."
I'd wager the substitute teacher and whoever created this assignment weren't descendents of a people who were enslaved on the basis of their socially constructed race, nor have they experienced systemic or social dehumanization for belonging to a particular group of disadvantaged people. Otherwise, they would've instinctively known that this is appalling, dehumanizing, and wrong. But this also raises the question: what the hell is wrong with New Jersey?
Race is not a social construct. The assignment is still wrong on several levels though.
Race is, in fact, a social construct. This is a fact, not an opinion.
I'm not sure why, but people (myself included) hear "social construct" and get the notion that it is totally arbitrary with no existence beyond people's thoughts. Biological race is certainly an actual thing; it just does not carry a lot of the implications that have traditionally been applied to it to justify racist institutions such as slavery.
