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Week 4 Chapter 3 Reading Response 1 - Globalizing Body Politics and Donald Grinde
Week 4 Chapter 3 Reading Response 1 - Globalizing Body Politics and Donald Grinde
colonizers version of history. It is this victor-based history that has shaped the perceptions,
ideologies, and views of ethnocentrism.
History has greatly influenced intercultural interactions. In Place and Kinship, author
Donald Grinde Jr. discusses how his account of American history is heavily influenced by his
standpoint of a male Native-American college student and professor. One such account was of
the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He recalls that after the assassination he went to
lower the flag to half-mast with several other students, both Asian American and white. They
were confronted by a group of white students that told [them] threateningly that [they] werent
to lower the flag since Kennedy was a nigger lover (Grinde, 1996). Grindes account of this
historical event is detailed and characterized by an interaction with a group of racially prejudicial
students, a direct example of the historical implications of intercultural interactions as influenced
by prejudicial history.
The social construct of race, as alluded to earlier, has been created, reinforced, and
perpetuated by both written text and history. Race now affects all individuals in America. Since
the election of President Barack Obama the argument has been made that we have entered into a
post racial America and that we are now blind to race. There is however a clear divide between
racial standpoints in America. The recent rise of groups like Black Lives Matter is a clear
indicator that there is much disapproval with the current status of many disenfranchised groups
in America. It is difficult to assert then that America is now blind to race and that there is no
racial inequity. With President Obamas election racial divides have certainly lessened. It is
therefore more reasonable to state that, since the advent of new technological innovations in
communication and travel, racial divides have certainly become less salient, and American
society has taken steps to create more racial equality.
Works Cited
Blumenbach, J.F. (1969). On the natural varieties of mankind. New York, NY: Bergman.
(Original work published 1775)
Grinde, D. (1996). Place and kinship. In B. Thompson & S. Tyagi (Eds.) Names we call home.
New York: Routledge.