We live in a society that draws lines and builds boxes. These creations function as a means to place people in categories to describe, identify, and imprison individuals into certain groups. One means of classification that we have is race. It is a simple way to create boxes and stereotypes about people based on their skin color. The majority of prejudices that occur in the world are based off of peoples' perceptions of judgments made clearly off of what they see. Another way that classifications are made is gender. This again can create boxes based only on perception. The wave of racism and sexism has permeated the infrastructure of American culture. It has shown its face in government, corporate, sports, and religious arenas just to name a few. Classifications based on race are not a new occurrence. You would probably be able to find many times in history where Kings, Pharaohs etc... Felt the need to conquer another group of people. Why? It has been said that one of the greatest fears is the fear of the unknown. An example of this is why many people fear death, because no one truly knows what happens when you die. America's history of leaders involves white men who were afraid of what they didn't understand. The result was that they either tried to conquer it, or destroy it. The Europeans did this to the Native Americans, Asians, and African Americans just to name a few. It seems as though fear is one of the main reasons that oppression occurs. The one problem with classification is that it does not cure the fear it just perpetuates more of it. Classification by race or gender is a limiting way of growing fear in our society. The offspring of fear is hate. Hate is a powerful thing because it can not only lead to the harm of others; it also causes harm to the person that hates.
             For as long as people have been of different ethnic backgrounds, there has always been a desire to classify people accor...