Eastlake High School Use of Race in Connection to Biology and Human Differences Questions

I’m trying to study for my Sociology course and I need some help to understand this question.

Part 1

http://www.understandingrace.org/

In particular click on the the topics within the website: history, human variations, and lived experiences. The topics on human variation and lived experiences have multiple pages, make sure to click on the “next” button in the lower right hand corner.

After checking out the website, answer the following discussion questions:

1. What critical points does the website make about the use of race in connection to biology and to human differences?

2. The website uses this quotation from Robin D.G. Kelley, a historian, “Racism is not about how you look, it is about how people assign meaning to how you look.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why or why not?

3. Is race a useful category in denoting human differences? If yes, why? If no, how would you change the way we talk about human differences?

Part 2

Instructions: read the following religious song and determine which one is primarily a song for the poor and which is primarily a song for the rich. Justify your answer with examples from the lecture and the song itself.

“A Gathering in the Sky”

There’ll be a great gathering in the sky

When all of God’s children get home

We’ll join the happy millions as they sing

There around the great white throne

I’m speaking of a big tent meetin’

Where we never shall say good-bye

I’m longin’ for the day

When I hear my savior say

There’s a gathering in the sky.

One by one we passed through the valley dim

Our load seems hard to bear;

But I’m going to a great reunion,

Where People’s not afraid of prayer.

There’ll be lot of old time singing.

Somewhere up there on high.

It seems I can hear them saying

There’s a gathering in the sky

“I Sing a Song of the Saints of God”

I sing a song of the saints of God

Patient and brave and true,

Who foiled and fought and lived and died

For the Lord they loved and knew

And one was doctor, and one was a queen,

And one was a shepherdess on the green:

They were all of them saints of God,

And I mean, God helping, to be one too.

They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,

And his love made them strong;

And they followed the right, for Jesus’ sake,

The whole of their good lives long,
And one was a solider, and one was a priest,

And one was slain by a fierce wild beast:

And there’s not any reason, no, not the least,

Why I shouldn’t be one too.

They lived not only in ages past,

There are hundreds of thousands still
The world is bright with the joyous saints

Who love to do Jesus’ will.

You can meet them in school or in lanes, or at sea.

In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;

For the saints of God are just folk like me,

And I mean to be one too.

Part 3

1. How is education related to race and class?
2. If you could restructure the education to be more equitable, what changes would you make?