The myth of race, the paucity of language
 

Race, what is race?

Is it a physical characteristic? Is it the sum of one's ancestors? How many ancestors? Is it a geographical assignment? Is it culture? Is it atomic or can it be a compound? Is it changeable? When is it assigned? Is it an individual's trait or the trait of groups? Is there a continuum? Is it important? Is it a choice?

There's a story in the news lately about a woman, recently the head of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, now resigned, who has described herself as black. Her parents have recently "outed" her on national television as white. She has said many things, the most recent remark on this topic "I identify as black."

What are your questions about race? What are the things you're sure of about race? What is there about race that you've changed your mind about?

If you've been reincarnated and someone asks for your race, do you give your original race, your present race, say you're multiracial; or, identify as the race you'd like to be for your next incarnation?

Race hell, let's walk down and do them all.

The meaning of the word race has changed considerably over the centuries. What's interesting is that, it seems to take on the newer meanings without ever completeely dropping the old. Those earlier meanings were often quite vaguely defined compared to what came later. it was kind of about blood - and about geographical loyalty and identity - kind of about nation in a way. The English race, the French race etc. But also - at lower levels of that - so someone might describe the Cornish as a race of men - or Yorkshiremen. There's a sense of breed about it too. The word was used in different ways to convey all those different meanings - it wasn't really about colour, or rather it wasn't about the divide between light and dark as it started tobecome - it wasn't about racial hierarchies in that way.

Growth of interest in natural history and the beginnings of the scientific method led to an attempt to categorise the fuck out of everything. Taxonomic studies of animals and plants - and of humans. You end up with a set of meanings around race that draw arbitray divisions - or divisions based on fundamentally superficial features.

The dwellar men may be interested to know that a lot of the focus of those studies was on the womenfolk - taking as the start point that the white, European woman represented the pinnacle of womanhood, they then used the body shape, and particularly breast size and shape to help clarify racial distinctions between the 'lesser' or less evolved races.

This idea of the evolution of civilisations - all wrapped up in the idea of races - held that man started in a state of nature and progressed at different paces according to a range of factors. But that progression was not just in terms of civilisation and technical development, it was seen as a progression of man - so the cultures that were less developed in the eyes of the Europeans, were also assumed to be a less developed, less evolved people. They were further behind on the journey.

Then the idea of evolution took on very different connotations, with Darwin's theory - this then gets applied to evolution of humans - and race starts to take on another set of new meanings.

Today - we are far more concerned in much of our cultural discourse in self-identity, than externally imposed identities. At the same time, so much of what we have learned about ourselves as a species, from a genetic standpoint sets on its head the idea of race as any kind of useful distinction.

I don't really know how I feel about what race is.

But what I can say, after reading quite a few different angles on this Rachel Dolezal story, is that her parents are complete assholes, and it's no surprise she has identity issues.

The different types of people that we have are not actually different races, biologically speaking. We are all the same race, biologically speaking.

That means to use the word "race" to describe what we would call a race is, in fact, racist.

And since the word "racist" contains the root word "race", it is racist to use the term racist.

I identify as a pickle and pimento loaf sandwich. Is that safe? What would my parents think? Such a brave conundrum.

Gumball.

?

Oh goodness, how dim of me lol. Of course.