The Risks of Reconstructing ‘Race’
“Prospero, you are the master of illusion.
Lying is your trademark.
And you have lied so much to me
(lied about the world, lied about me)
that you have ended by imposing on me
an image of myself.
Underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior,
That is the way you have forced me to see myself
I detest that image! What’s more, it’s a lie!
But now I know you, you old cancer,
and I know myself as well.” — Caliban, in Aime Cesaire’s “The Tempest.”
Over the years, people have attempted to redefine ‘race’ to preserve their history, kinship, or empower themselves. However, I think this is a dangerous thing to do.
Firstly, reconstructing ‘race’ reinforces racism, which is the false idea that humans can be separated into distinct ‘biological races’ that endow them with physical, moral, behavioural, intellectual, or cultural traits.
Secondly, redefining ‘race’ essentialises a person, except instead of doing so through negative stereotypes (in the case of ‘non-white’ people), it does so through positive ones.
Thirdly, reconstructing ‘race’ encourages people to identify and take pride in problematic and non-existent racial identities. Moreover, it convinces them their assigned identity is who they are, making them want to protect or defend it at all costs, thus enabling and furthering racism and violence.
For example, let’s imagine that a kid gets called an idiot at school for no plausible reason, making him sad. Devastated, he goes home and tells his mom that a kid at school called him an idiot. To make him feel better and empower him, the mom says, “you’re the most beautiful and powerful idiot there is. So many other idiots before you did great things, so you should take pride in being an idiot and value it.”
From then on, the kid loves and values being called an idiot and makes it part of his identity, even though it’s wrong, dehumanising, essentialising, and doesn’t accurately reflect who he really is. He even makes friends with other kids called idiots, and he feels good because he shares a sense of community and history with them. His pride in being called an idiot also makes him forget it was wrong of the other kid to call him an idiot in the first place and that he’s not an idiot.
Moreover, when he and his friends proudly respond to being called idiots, it amuses the other kids because being an idiot is still considered unfavourable by them. When the other kids laugh at him and his friends, he’s confused about why they do so, and he’s unhappy because he doesn’t like being treated like an idiot.
The teacher, noticing the sadness of the students being teased, reprimands the other kids and tells them to stop calling them idiots. However, the kids being called idiots get angry because they feel like the teacher is disregarding part of their ‘identity.’ They then aggressively defend their right to be called idiots, but every time they respond to being called idiots, the other children laugh at and look down on them because they think they’re idiots, making them sadder.
Although this is an exceptionally simplified and somewhat abstract analogy, it illustrates the problem with reconstructing ‘race.’ At first, the kid was aware that he isn’t an idiot and shouldn’t have been called that. However, after talking to his mother, he suddenly prizes being called an idiot so much that he forgets that it’s wrong and that it’s not who he is. The problem is exacerbated by him finding community and a shared history with other kids in the same situation.
However, the pride and identity the kids assume to deal with being called idiots unintentionally enable and further the wrong behaviour that initially hurt them and continues to hurt them. The underlying pain and confusion they initially felt are also not confronted or resolved. Even though they made the meaning positive for themselves, it still means the same thing to the other kids who still use it to hurt them. Their acceptance of the term also confirms and perpetuates the false idea that they’re idiots.
In the same way, taking pride in a reconstructed identity might provide solidarity, empowerment, and validation for ‘non-white’ people, but it also contributes to the pain and racism they’re trying to eradicate or avoid. Doing so also reinforces the racist, wrong, and essentialist idea of ‘race.’ Therefore, a change of attitude or name for the same racial category isn’t enough to solve the issue of racism because the underlying pain and racist framework remain the same.
Western European colonial masters created racism centuries ago to sow discord between people and dehumanise ‘non-white’ people to permanently exploit them for labour and resources. For maximum ‘efficiency’, ‘race’ was created in a hierarchical way that puts Europeans (‘white people’) on top and categorises others based on how different they are from Europeans.
The further a ‘race’ is from the accepted European aesthetic and culture, the more ‘inferior’ and ‘less respectable and deserving.’ According to Smedley, Europeans used ‘race’ to determine “who should have access to privilege, power, status, and wealth, and who should not.”
The dominant group then institutionalised racist ideology, attitudes, and practices to create what Smedley calls a “racial worldview.” Western countries then spread this racial worldview to their colonies, which adapted it to fit their populations. Therefore, ‘race’ as structured by Western European colonisers can never be neutral because they designed it to dehumanise, exclude, divide, and exploit ‘non-white’ populations. Regardless of how existing racial categories are renamed or made to seem positive, they’ll always serve this purpose.
Although the racial worldview was created and spread centuries ago, countries worldwide still reproduce and legitimise it today, including the U.S., which has the most powerful institutions globally, making it dominant and prevalent.
There are different ontologies of race: naturalism, which sees ‘race’ as biological; social constructivism, which acknowledges that race isn’t biological nor natural but is socially meaningful, reconstructionism which argues that ‘race’ can be redefined; and eliminativism which argues that ‘race’ should be abandoned and replaced with something else.
However, to abandon ‘race’ doesn’t mean denying that physical differences between humans exist, denying or ignoring racism and social inequality, erasing people, history, or community, or being colourblind. It’s merely to acknowledge that ‘race’ is inherently problematic and can’t be reconstructed and therefore has no place in society.
Regarding the ontological spectrum, I’m somewhere between a social constructivist and an eliminativist. I recognise that although ‘race’ isn’t biologically real, people treat it as real, enabling racism. However, just because society values ‘race’ and treats it as natural doesn’t mean we should uphold it because it still furthers racism, division, and exclusion.
However, some say that ‘race’ is needed to fight racism because it gives one an identity that gives them power, history, and solidarity. In my books, fighting fire with fire results in an even bigger fire. In other words, using racism to combat racism just creates more racism.
To the above, Smedley says, “It is far more accurate and more fruitful to scholarship, and possibly to the future of humankind, to define African American people by their sense of community, consciousness, and commitment than by some mystical “racial essence.”
Furthermore, I don’t think history and a sense of community hinge on what we’re called because it doesn’t change who we are as people/humans, where we come from, or what happened. This is why racialised black people were able to keep their sense of history and community when our label changed (or rather got translated) from ‘negro’ to ‘black.’
In addition, in the Zulu culture (among other African cultures), our shared humanity is fundamental to creating or feeling a sense of community with others. This is why Zulus greet each other by saying ‘sawubona,’ which means “I see you.” It doesn’t just mean I physically see you, but it means I recognise your worth and dignity as a human being. We believe one is valuable or worthy because they’re human. This ties into our greater philosophy of ‘ubuntu,’ meaning ‘humanity.’
In my opinion, to get somewhere we’ve never been before regarding the eradication of racism, we need to let go of the idea that ‘race’ is natural, too deeply ingrained, and necessary. Social constructivists say that society makes ‘race’ real by believing that it is. If that’s the case, then we can also make ‘race’ unreal by believing and behaving as though it isn’t real, natural, and necessary. Moreover, it’s been scientifically proven that ‘race’ has no ‘biogenetic’ basis, meaning it’s not intrinsically real.
However, to see ‘race’ as unnatural and unnecessary isn’t to pretend that human differences, racism, and injustice no longer exist. I also realise that taking this step won’t make ‘racism’ magically disappear, but at least we’ll no longer be attached to identities that limit our awareness and compassion and obscure our humanity.
Once that’s out of the way, we can have fruitful discussions on the best possible ways to eradicate racism. Doing so will also allow us to confront our collective pain, trauma, and racial conditioning to create something new that recognises and respects the humanity in all of us and celebrates our differences instead of making them immutable and problematic, which furthers racism.
