Johnson Chapter 2

The author has a long thesis in this chapter it says “what makes socially constructed reality so powerful is that we rarely if ever experience it as that. We think the way our culture defines something like race or gender is simply the way things are in some objective sense. We think there really is such a thing as “race” and that the words we use simply name an objective reality that is “out there.” The truth is, however, that once human beings give something a name—whether it be skin color or disability –that thing acquires a significance it otherwise would not have. More important, the name quickly takes on a life of its own as we forget the social process that created it and start treating it as “real” in and of itself.
The author is arguing that in our world there is no such thing as race. It is just a word that we use to define the differences of people in our culture. There is a no set meaning of what race and gender are. There is just what we set the definition of these words as. The author talks about how Native American tribes are aloud to pick their own gender, he says “in some Native American plains tribes, people were allowed to choose their gender regardless of their physical characteristics.” He is explaining how Native Americans don’t judge people based on their physical characteristics they accept everyone for who they are no matter the circumstances. In another quote the author poses a question to the readers about seeing a person whom which we can not directly identify which gender they are. He says, “Pass someone on the street whom you can’t identify as clearly male or female, for example, and it can jolt your attention and nag you until you think you’ve figured it out.” Personally I know that I have done this before so I can relate to what he is saying. People judge others based on their looks and in most cases judge people to quickly. Johnson talks to novelist James Baldwin, Baldwin speaks about how we live in a society that recognizes the differences between people. He explains the story of a black woman from Africa, who has never experienced white racism before, so she doesn’t see herself as a black woman. He says she sees herself as a woman, and she sees herself as black, but she doesn’t think of herself as a black woman.
How do Johnson’s arguments affect the way the world is portrayed currently? I believe that Johnson proposes an interesting argument and he has good evidence to back it up. He shows the whole picture of race and gender in the world today. He is explaining how much different cultures are from each other. Going back to the black woman from Africa, he goes on in saying that she comes to the United States, and she is treated differently and is placed in a social category even though she has done nothing to deserve it.
I think that the author does a good job with this point. He paints an accurate picture of what goes on in the world today, and gives real life examples of how people treat each other and how they affect one another.