Answer

Similarities and differences between Race and Ethnicity

The social makeup of the world has arguably been made up and divided across race and ethnicity. Success and subsequent failure of individuals in a given society is at times blamed on the race and ethnicity for example, crime in the United States is more often than not blamed on the blacks and the comparison is not limited to the evils in the society but include areas such as academics and productivity. Yasuhiro Nakasome, a onetime Japanese prime minister, controversially stated that the average Japanese intellectual standard is higher than the average Americans (Bhopal 4). This he argued was as a result of Hispanics and the Blacks in America.  Even though race and ethnicity are related aspects in the human and social setup, they mean different things and affect the way people live and interact within a society greatly.

One of the major differences between race and ethnicity is the fact that while one can have a number of ethnic affiliations, the race is always unitary. While race is in reference to the biological make up of an individual such as the skin color, eye color and bone structure, ethnicity refers to the cultural aspects like ancestry, language and ancestry. Regarding similarities between the two, they are both a creation of the society. They exist in virtual sense and are not tangible in a physical sense.

            Ethnic identity is the degree to which an individual would identify him or herself to an ethnic group. It influences the individuals thinking, behavior, perceptions and reactions. It is what forms one’s heritage. It is constructed by living and behaving in a peculiar way that is unique to a specific group (Van den Berghes & Pierre 8). My ethnic work is fishing; this is because my ethnic background is with the fishing community. The fishing is communal in nature; the people organize themselves and share the catch at the end of the session. It is usually done at night laying the nets and later on retrieving the catch to the shore. The bulk of the catch is sold in the local market while the rest is consumed by the community.

                     Race and ethnicity are but a creation of societies we live in, they were in the past used to define boundaries and limit interaction especially during the colonial rule in Africa, and the two have also been used to define productivity with a few groups being deemed more productive a factor that influences job creation. The two terms though related are different and mean different things. The two should not be used to divide and discriminate people but rather spur growth and embrace the difference and the uniqueness of each group (Pitts 619).