Question

People that hold an essentialist view of race believe that race is based on

a) how one identifies themselves.
b) what society determines is meaningful when grouping physically similar traits.
c) biologically inherited traits.
d) shared customs and cultural traditions that transcend physical features.

Answer 1

• People that hold an essentialist view of race believe that race is based on how one identifies themselves.
• Essentialism is the view that groups have essenses: fixed traits that all members of a group have, and which are unique to that group.
• Essentialism is the view that every entity has a set of attributes that are necessary to its identity and function.
• Essentialism, at its simplest, is the view that things have essences (the attribute, or set of attributes, that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is). Thus, for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics (or properties or traits), all of which any entity of that kind must have.