From my understanding, a social construct is a system of interpretations (and corresponding behaviour) that comes into being because people collectively choose to follow it for any number of reasons. Ali G is a white man playing a stereotypically black character. Let’s think about it though…

What's to say black people should have a monopoly on behaving the way Ali G does? According to a BBC article; it’s been scientifically proven that "only a few genes are responsible for someone's skin colour, which is a very poor indication of ancestry. A white person could have more African genes than a black one or vice-versa, especially in a country like Brazil." So yeah, racial stereotypes are powerful social constructions. One (black) guy who was tested and interviewed for that story had 67% of his genes coming from European ancestry much to his own surprise. The rubbish thing about the social construction of racial stereotypes is that: at the end of the day he would still be perceived as a black man by society and experience all the discrimination etc. that goes with being black in some parts of the world. What’s to say that people have to behave according to racial stereotypes anyways…

Comments (1)

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written by Bobojuice, 19 October , 2007

I think this video is racialist