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CheckPoint Assignment: Defining Race and Ethnicity Shane King 5-25-2010 Theresa Thurman I think that race could have several meanings depending on the individual. To me, race means “a group of people that have some same, common physical attributes at one another. ” I think that race is society’s way of categorizing certain people into certain groups. Ethnicity is defined as “The classification of a population that shares common characteristics, such as, religion, traditions, culture, language, and tribal or national origin. I think that this definition pretty much covers my personal opinion of what ethnicity means. What I didn’t realize is that ethnicity can also cover religion and I never thought religion could fall under ethnicity. I thought that ethnicity only covered skin colour and other physical attributes in people. The concepts are important to United States society in that the U. S. is a melting pot already. It is an equal opportunity country. I think that race and ethnicity are used for several studies to get a good idea of the future of the United States.
I think that both of these two concepts are also important to the future of education, policies, laws, opportunities, families, and future views of society. On the other hand, I don’t feel that there is a huge problem at the moment. I think that these concepts are important but I don’t think that the U. S. as a whole looks at race and ethnicity as being a problem. I feel that it’s just the norm when you see other race and ethnicity in the United States.