A world without race

In America, rights are given to all people, even non-citizens, based on the law of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  All people in America are entitled to rights not because of membership in a certain race or group, but because of membership in the national community.

A person with black skin is afforded the same rights as a person with white skin — both are entitled to all rights, privileges and immunities under the Constitution, and all guaranteed equal protection of the law.

Indeed, the American Constitution provides a robust framework for destroying the fiction of race — and it is a fiction — once and for all, and creating a society where skin color is as important to daily life as eye color or hair color.

The idea that human beings belong to separate “races” is a social fantasy with little basis in science.  It is true that people from certain cultural groups have certain characteristics and may even have different genetic make-up.  But the idea that all people with black skin are a “black race” while all people with white skin are a “white race” is childishly simple.

Any person with even an inkling of education knows that “white people”, for example, are composed of a variety of cultures such as French, German, English, Polish, or Irish.  In fact, many of these cultural groups fought wars with each other just 60 or 70 years ago.  Yet it is only in America where people from these cultural groups are considered some monolithic block.

Similarly, “black people” are composed of a variety of cultural groups as well.  While most “African-Americans” are descended from individuals who came from West Africa, African people have greater genetic diversity than any where else on Earth, on account of the long history in which humans lived in Africa before spreading to other continents.  The notion that all “black people” are the same has absolutely no basis in science — in fact, science tells us that “black people” are more genetically diverse than “white people.”

Perhaps 200 years ago, or even 50 years ago, it was socially acceptable to treat people differently based on skin color.  The idea of “race” was an outgrowth of power structures that permitted people with white skin to have more freedoms than people with black skin.

Thankfully, and because of decades of struggle, power is no longer correlated with skin color.  Yet America continues to cling too much to the fiction of race.

“Race,” in fact, has become an excuse for inaction, and an excuse for prejudice.  The idea of a “race” allows us to see a person’s skin color and attach a set of values and judgments associated with that skin color.  A person sees black skin and thinks one thing; or brown skin and thinks another; or white skin and still something else.  These prejudgments and prejudices are rarely accurate, but they are easy, and they allow us to go through our lives without having to do much thinking.  Sadly, many people like to go through life without thinking.

There is no dispute that because of history, people with certain skin colors are statistically likely to be worse off in American society than others.  The fact that poverty is proportionately a crisis for people with black skin is a telling reminder that the ghosts of slavery continue to haunt society.  But even here, “race”-based statistics become an excuse for inaction.  The existence of  a woman with black skin who is discriminated at work, who lives in poverty and lacks health care is a travesty to American conceptions of justice because she is entitled, as an American, to her opportunities in life — regardless of the color of her skin.  The deprivation of her rights should be a concern for all people of all skin color, but because she may be classified as a certain “race,” it becomes difficult for people in other “racial groups” to empathize with her.

There is some truth to arguments that it is time for the government to stop classifying people on account of “race.”  The continued use of “race” as a category merely prolongs its idea.  But throwing away race as a category must also be accompanied with serious action against its foundation:  prejudice based on skin color.  All Americans, regardless of skin color, must be challenged to lay down their stereotypes and treat individual Americans as individual Americans, and not as members of some fictional “race” that only exists in a fantasy land, and not reality.

People of any skin color are capable of succeeding in life.  There is great work to be done in ending prejudice and also the lingering effects of slavery and xenophobia which continue to have a disparate impact on some skin colors.  This is the challenge that confronts America.  But the legal framework is already there; the values which Americans cherish need no real alteration — only their application requires a bit more evolution.

America will have conquered its racial demons when the following things are true:

• When the halls of government — legislative, executive and judicial — reflect the demographic make-up of the country
• When people form relationships and get married with as much concern for skin color as eye color or hair color
• When statistics related to skin color have as much relevance as statistics related to eye color or hair color

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 19th, 2009 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Alternative Living, Content, Structure and System and tagged with america, bigotry, equality, separate but equal, slavery, struggle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.