Research Questions

Unit 2, 2/22

How does having privilege, or lack of, impact one’s way of life in America?

What defines racism?

Is ethnicity/race an influential factor in platonic/romantic relationships?

Reflection:

After interviewing 3 people, I’ve received various interesting answers to these questions. For the first question, my participants seemed to struggle with providing a well-structured response. However, after some thought, the general conclusion was that the quality of life for White Americans was significantly better than Americans of color, and other minority groups. I did however receive an interesting response from one participant, claiming that she didn’t believe that race had much of an impact on one’s way of life in America. When asking her for more details, she told me that as a white American with many friends that were people of color, she grew up with similar experiences as them, and believed her quality of life was the same as theirs. As for the second question, my participants’ definitions of racism were similar. According to them, the hatred of another person on the basis of race was what defined racism. What I found interesting was that none of my participants brought up systemic racism, or defined it in terms of historical context. These are major components of racism, in my opinion, however to be fair, it was a brief answer to a brief question. Finally, as for the third question, I received mixed responses. Two of my participants believed that ethnicity/race was not an influential factor in relationships, as race did not impact their views on their friends and romantic interests. One of my participants, however, argued that it was an influential factor in the way that culture can impact one’s values, preferences, and other qualities in terms of their views of relationships. I found that I agreed with this perspective, as I believe that since culture impacts aspects such as childhood, it ultimately impacts your viewpoints on the world and the people around you.