The concept of race is prevalent in today’s contemporary society. Race becomes an integral part of everyday routine and as such the socially constructed idea is extremely important. Race or the biological features of a person or group (including “skin colour, eye shape, hair and other such features” ) is used generally to identify aspects of an individual’s personality – the notion of which is merely impossible. “Race exists only as a statistical correlation, not as an objective fact. The distinction we make between different races is not naturally given but is socially defined”. The idea that biological concepts of race can be used to explain personality traits is called racialization and spirals to become hostilities, problems and negative race relations amongst the community. These race relations shape the contemporary society and as such, studying the concept of race is central in understanding present-day interactions and analysing how a society behaves.
“The idea of race underwent a radical shift in the mid-nineteenth century. Race ceased to describe a difference that was traced to the influence of environmental or climatic factors and came to refer to a difference that was understood to be fundamentally biological” . The categorisation of people as broadly as biological features leads to both Ludacris conclusions and the chance that these traits and expectations will be reflected and mirrored by those categorised . The social conventions that stem from ‘race’ can also form Biological Racism. This creates a society that is dominated by one group which is inherently superior to any other. Throughout history this relationship has inspired negative consequences as horrible as slavery, or simply as the relational aspect in which people compare themselves to others. It was “Only after 2nd world war and particularly during the 1960’s that social scientists began to recognise the central place of race relations in the study of society” and as such most of these travesties went both unnoticed and unrecorded. This also meant a thorough exploration of contemporary society could not be formed due to an important gap in vital information.
According to David Mellor’s report which outlines the koori people study by Davidson, Sanson, and Gridley (2000) in Contemporary Racism in Australia: The Experiences of Aborigines, biological racism is intrinsically seen both overtly and covertly throughout the indigenous population. “There is a significant level of prejudice in the Australian general community towards Aborigines, who have been described as “by far the most ‘Outsider’ group in Australian society” (Angelico, 1995, p. 253)…. No Aboriginal Australian can ever be an Australian in the same sense as a White Australian.” The results conclude that the Australian indigenous population becomes the inferior ‘race’ due to the social conventions and expectations put in place against them.
Mellor’s report presented all, 34 Koories 18 women and...
