Why Do We Keep Using the Word “Caucasian”?
When a term signifies something that does not exist, we need to examine our use of it.
Why Do We Keep Using the Word “Caucasian”?
Yolanda Moses
Yolanda Moses is a professor of anthropology and the associate vice chancellor for diversity, equity, and excellence at the University of California, Riverside. Her research focuses on the broad question of the origins of social inequality in complex societies. Moses has explored gender and class disparities in the Caribbean, East Africa, and the United States. More recently, her research has focused on issues of diversity and change in universities and colleges in the United States, India, Europe, and South Africa. She has co-authored two books about race, most recently Race: Are We So Different?, written with Alan Goodman and Joseph Jones.
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Is the Term “People of Color” Acceptable in This Day and Age?
The words we use to describe groups of people say a lot about what we’re grappling with as a society.
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Racial Realities
When I tell my students that there is no such thing as “race” (meaning biological race), I wait for the blowback. I know it is coming. “Well if there is no such thing as race,” one of them will say, “then why do we look different, like our skin color?” Or another will say, “If there is no such thing as race, then why do we continue to …
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Why We Must Talk About Race
I grew up a black woman in urban Los Angeles during the age of the civil rights movement. “Race” was all around me, woven into the fabric of my personal life, my community, my country. Perhaps it was inevitable that I would become a cultural anthropologist who studies how race works in the world. I’ve always wanted to know why. Why do we live in this community, and …