1 It is not, and never has been, true that the Hyaenidae is a family distinguished by scavenging. 2  Of the four species alive today-the Aardwolf and the Spotted, Striped and Brown Hyaenas-only the latter two are full-time scavengers.
In other words, the legal construction of white and non-white in U.S. history is one engine that drives the way that the past continues to shape the present. Whiteness has been made to appear natural, that is, as objective scientific fact, in U.S. cultural and legal history.
Death is a social construction, which means that it is defined by using words, concepts, and ways of thinking available in the culture (Kastenbaum 1998). Because this meaning is socially constructed, death can mean different things to different people, and the meaning can change over time for each person.