If you prick us, do we not [all] bleed?

In "Race: The Power of An Illusion", scientists, sociologists and historians discuss the reality of the modern idea of Race.  They examine the scientific endeavors of the past to make clear cut distinctions between different racial groups.  However, modern science tells us no such distinctions exist.  In fact, what we currently consider the three basic races were classified differently in the past, prompting the question: "What do we mean when we talk about race?"  Microbiologist Pilar Ossorio puts it succinctly when she tells us, "There's as much or more diversity and genetic difference within any racial group as there is between people of different racial groups."  When we talk about race we are often conflating outward appearance (genetic phenotypes) with cultural attributes of NON distinct, overlapping groups.  When we hear of attributes or weaknesses associated with race we are hearing the confirmation bias of the dominate culture described, often cartoonishly, in stereotypes and overly broad generalizations.  These traits are generally the result of conditions in the environment, including poverty, oppression and isolation from other members of society.  Within racial groups there is just as much genetic variety as there is between members of different races, because the idea of race is a socially constructed one, enforced through outward appearance, which is only a small part of our genetic make up.  Traits that have been "selected for" by demonstrating a specific evolutionary advantage at a specific time and place, appeared more dominately in different geographic areas.  This does not mean that all light skinned people [or dark skinned people] share  genes associated with other traits.

The clasped hands of Jesse and Antoinette Burk

On the census form, my "racial identity" (though I cringe inwardly to think of it that way) would be white, my ethnicity would be of Hispanic descent.  I don't think of myself that way.  I think of myself as one of seven billion or so human beings.  I think of myself as being "brown skinned".  If I  look at my family I see: my "white" husband, and "mixed" (light brown, haha) kids, my parents, both of hispanic decent on opposite ends of the skin color spectrum, my Dad darker than I, my mother just barely darker than my husband, my siblings, in several shades of brown and then, not really brown at all, with hair that is very straight and dark (like mine) to hair that is tinged with reddish hues, coarse and curly, and I can see that genetics is a sort of wonderful grab bag.  Once, in line at a grocery store, a clerk commented that she could see that two of us were clearly related, but, the other one (fair skinned, curly haired) looked nothing like us.  If she were as brown as us, would the clerk have come to the same conclusion?  I thought not.

I was raised to be proud of who I am, to be aware that there are disadvantages to being brown and poor, but that all human beings have value, and hard work and intelligence would help me rise above those who could not see my value.

The movie and it's premise were not new to me.  These ideas were commonly brought up in my household as I was growing up and continue to be part of my dialogue with my family today. 

My children have struggled with understanding the artificial divisions of race that they do not understand.  My youngest daughter wanted to know how her friend could have red hair and "still belong" to dark haired parents.  I explained that red hair is a recessive gene and dark hair genes "hide" the expression of red hair, unless both parents have this gene, they won't have a red haired child, but when they both have it there is a one in four chance that they both give it to their child and: red hair!  Then she asked me, "But we can both be Mexicans still?" -as if she could be expelled from her own group for not looking like everyone else.  (So many parts of being a parent give me a heavy heart, I wonder if race would be more or less of one if I married a "Mexican" [or other Hispanic person- because I do not want to exclude my husband's identity from my children's personal history],  or if I was a fluent Spanish speaker or if I cared less about all of it.) Well, you are Americans of Mexican descent.  Some people say "Mexican Americans", I explained to her.  Then I reminded her that her great great grandmother had auburn hair and green-hazel eyes, and she lived in Mexico.  When filling out their school forms, we've talked about why they have to give their race, (sometimes we check "mixed ethnicity" or the equivalent if it's available as a choice) and why we don't check "decline to state" (so we can be counted for statistical purposes, even if that count is inexact).

Ideas of race have been perpetuated, not just by those in power who benefit from demonstrating the relative unworthiness of others, but because we have conflated "race" and identity, and further, because we find ourselves so deeply entrenched in our specific cultures that we often fail to see the similarities between what we are assured are distinct cultures.  This prevalence of beliefs based on popular preconceptions can be just as damaging as the folk knowledge that inspired scientific efforts to bolster the arguments for racial divisions in previous centuries.  All human beings crave belonging, all human beings require community to flourish.  Unfortunately, it is often easiest to find community were superficial traits are found in common, and many communities of people have become further insulated from the dominate group - or, in this case "whiteness"- because they superficially or arbitrarily do not represent it, and are discouraged from finding a place within it.

Race is what we say it is, if we reject these labels though, they do not disapear, but appear to others who often apply them arbitrarily.  Our common humanity has been asserted, not just recently but over and over again, and if it must continue to be, so be it, I am here to speak it.