by Zola Ray

“Race is a social construct.” I saw this sentence on the projector in my Race and Ethnic Relations class and jotted it into my notebook. Figuring that the statement was simply being used as an indication of how ridiculous and harmful racism is, I was on board with it. I even used it in conversation a couple times.

During a discussion in another course, a fellow student of color mockingly repeated the phrase, “Race is a social construct.” At first, I had to wonder why this phrase was worthy of mockery. Perhaps some people find it too lofty, I thought. But soon I realized that the idea of race as a social construct can sometimes bring us to a conclusion that is anything but progressive.


Yes, race is socially constructed rather than biologically based. Bill Nye has said so himself. From a scientific standpoint, he is right. However, I fear many people will use his sentiment, and other similar ideas, as a way to discount racism. Many people mistakenly view the term “social construct” as being synonymous with non-existent. As a result, people take this view even further by trying to silence people of color when we speak about instances of racism or take pride in our racial identities.

A while back, my Facebook News Feed was filled with friends sharing a spoken word poem by a black poet named Patrick Ea, in which he says, “I am not black; you are not white.” He goes on to say, “These labels were made up to divide us,” and he challenges his audience to shed racial labels.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I found parts of the video beautiful. But I can’t ignore the glaring problem. The poem disregards a large chunk of history. The poet says that race was created to divide us, but that’s only part of the story. Race was constructed as a means to justify the oppression and economic exploitation of people of color, and that’s the important part that leads his argument astray. Within the past couple of years, we’ve seen Raven-Symoné choosing not to identify as African-American in what turned out to be the first of many controversial comments. This mentality of shedding one’s racial identity to create a “colorblind society” may be the result of some not understanding the context in which race is discussed as socially constructed.

This lack of contextualizing and understanding is what makes so many people of color cringe at the expression “race is a social construct,” as my classmate did. For some of us, hearing that idea sets off the “alarm.” The alarm is a term coined by W.E.B. DuBois that is described accurately by Nicholas Powers in the following passage from his article for the Indypendent, titled “Why I Yelled at the Kara Walker Exhibit”:

The ‘alarm’ is a reflex most minorities have, it’s a rising anxiety that signals you are surrounded by people too privileged to know they’re hurting you. Or who would not care if they did. It can beep quietly. Or blare like a foghorn. The alarm is part of the psychological package that W.E.B. Du Bois described in his 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk as, ‘double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others.’

If you are a member of any oppressed group, this feeling is probably familiar.

The reason the alarm goes off upon hearing that “race is a social construct” is not because of the statement itself—rather, it is because of the fear of what is likely to come out of the person’s mouth next. It is all too common for this same person to tell us to “stop making everything about race.” Many people believe the only way to end racism is to throw away the concept of race altogether. However, what many people of color hear is: We should not be proud of our racial identities.

What many people who believe in “colorblindness” do not understand is that many people of color are now proud to wear the labels that were once used to stigmatize us. It shows what we have prevailed through years of oppression, but others think identifying this way is just further fueling racism. Thinking critically about race does not contribute to racism. And a colorblind society is not the solution to racism. In fact, the conclusion we reach should be quite the opposite. The only way to fully end racism is to think about race critically and frequently. We need to realize that racism lives within every one of us and within many facets of our society. Then we need to work to fix it.

This includes talking about who constructed the idea of race and why. Europeans used race to justify their colonization and oppression of people of color. It was the justification for murders, rapes, conquest, slavery and many other forms of dehumanization. Because of this so-called “social construct,” white supremacy has continued to poison our society for centuries. The lives, opinions, and well-being of people of color are valued significantly less than those of whites. Although race was “constructed” centuries ago, innocent Black men, women, and children are still beaten and killed by authorities every day.

Many white people view race as having a significant correlation to human worth, and have for centuries. Conveniently deciding to ignore race now can’t undo all of that oppression. If white supremacists are treating people of color as if we’re lesser beings, the way to counter this is not by saying, “Race isn’t even real.” That’s hardly a strong enough argument against the oppression people of color continue to experience. To be on the right side of history, we must fight back by calling people out when they say or do something racist. We must let them know their opinions are based on harmful ideas created years ago to justify the dehumanization of people of color.

Yes, race is a social construct. No, that does not make it—or the impact of racism— trivial.

So does this mean people should stop saying that race is a social construct? After all, the phrase itself is not inherently racist, but it can be associated with racist ideas that involve silencing the voices of people of color. I believe that if there’s a common association between a phrase and a problematic idea, then using the phrase may lead to criticism. When oppressed people hear something associated with an oppressive concept, the alarm goes off in our heads. This is the same alarm that sounds when we experience microagressions, which cause us to feel less safe or comfortable, even if we are not experiencing direct or overt bigotry.

Of course, one may acknowledge the roots of how race was constructed in hopes of moving towards ways we can end racism. So, what is the most effective way of doing this? First, it’s important that we point to the origin of this construct and its harmful effects on today’s society. We need to direct our anger at the oppressor, not the oppressed. Then, we need to truly assess the way we look at race. While we should never “stop seeing color,” we need to change the way we see it. We need to remove the lens through which we see whiteness as the default. If race was constructed, then whiteness was constructed too.


Because race was socially constructed by Europeans, white people are seen as “raceless,” whereas people of color are racialized. This leads us to see white people through the lens of personhood before race, while not giving people of color the same treatment. We end up seeing people of color as representatives of their respective races instead of as unique individuals. Ultimately, this rhetoric dehumanizes people of color and perpetuates racism.

It needs to be understood that people of color talking openly about our racial identities is not the same as reinforcing racism. It is the result of being proud of our success and tenacity after being placed at the bottom of a social hierarchy. People of color have adapted to being racialized by owning the labels that society gave us, and this is an important part of fighting racism. It fuels us to enter white spaces unabashedly while also creating our own.

Dismantling racism is a complex issue, but one thing is for sure: Racism is very real and we all need to challenge it within our society. We need not focus on the fact that race does not exist biologically, but rather on the fact that race was created to instill a horrible social hierarchy that continues to exist. Race exists to keep people of color out of power and ultimately to strip us of our basic human rights. The fact that race is a social construct is a reason that we should be talking about it, not a reason to ignore it. “Race is a social construct” shouldn’t be the end of a conversation about race. It should be the beginning.

Photo: Shutterstock

Zola Ray is passionate about exploring race, gender and other aspects of the human experience through her writing. She’s a strong believer in the idea that if your feminism is not intersectional, it’s not true feminism. On her spare time, she can be found admiring cute animals or watching YouTube videos. You can follow Zola on Twitter @zolamray and visit her website: www.zolaray.com.

By Malaika Jabali

As they have in the past, the conservative truth spinners behind the online media outlet Breitbart News Network have initiated an attack against yet another person of color fighting for civil and human rights. The target this time is activist Shaun King, who has been vocal about the police abuse that has permeated our consciousness for over a year. In likening Shaun King to Rachel Dolezal, the network accused King of lying about being half black in order to receive a “Sons of Oprah” scholarship to attend Morehouse College, a historically Black college and university.

by Morgan Jerkins for The Guardian

The other day, I was walking back to my Harlem apartment when I stumbled upon a very shocking sign in front of a black church. It read:

A little over a week ago, we published the article "What it Means to be Mixed Race During the Fight for Black Lives" by Shannon Luders-Manuel, which sparked a lot of discussion and was shared nearly 2,000 times.

by Marilyn Rhames

It’s 8 a.m. I reach for my cell phone to turn off the alarm, and I notice an email from an unfamiliar name. Turns out, it’s a middle-aged white science teacher and self-described motivational speaker from New York City.

by Priscilla Ward

I felt like everything was okay. The ability to separate myself from history was blissful. I had the mental and physical autonomy to brush it off and not be bothered. On a small scale I understood the pain and despair of African-Americans’ struggles in this country, but they were distant and far removed. I could study them one moment, shelve the pain, and focus on something else the next.

by Shannon Luders-Manuel

When I talk about my family culture, I’m mixed. When I talk about racism, I’m black. When Trayvon Martin was shot for wearing a hoodie, I was black. When Eric Garner was choked to death for selling cigarettes on the street, I was black. When Sandra Bland was arrested for failing to turn on her blinker, I was black. When churchgoers were shot for being black, I was black.

by Angela Souza

I'm young. I'm black. I'm a woman. And I'm angry. It seems that almost weekly we are forced to create a hashtag to immortalize and reverence another black life lost to violence at the hands of police officers. It's an endless cycle: black person is slain, we rage, they justify, we mourn. Before we can get past the distress of the event at hand, we’re hit with the infuriating and shocking news of the newest headline: another black life stolen.

Our reactions run the gamut of sadness to outrage, but what startles and bothers me most is what I've been seeing recently – fellow black people with attitudes of detached indifference. To my surprise, more and more black folks are expressing their apathy. Statements like "What do you expect?" "Not all cops are bad!" "If only [insert this week's black victim] had listened..." are rampant.

So you're telling me that if a little boy hadn't played with a toy gun in the park… like, you know, 12-year-olds do, or if a young girl hadn't been sleeping in her house that night when cops barged in, and if a woman had used her indicators when changing lanes that day then maybe, just MAYBE, they'd still be alive?

Whet?

After much frustration and time spent reflecting, raging, and pulling my hair out, I realized the root of the problem. Many of my people, black people, uphold white supremacist ideology.



White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of all other races, especially the black race, and should therefore dominate society.

Before getting your panties in a bunch, realize that white supremacist ideology doesn't always materialize in overtly inflammatory statements and white hoods. Nah. Most often, it's a lot subtler. White supremacist ideology is embraced through the idolization of long, flowing hair over one's own kinky curls, or through the little girl's preference of the "pretty" (read: white) baby doll over the dark one. It's the feeling of embarrassment one feels due to their black-sounding name, or it's the young woman's decision not to date black men, since she desires curly haired, light-skinned babies. It's the sudden acquisition of a formal English dialect around whites. It's the refusal to listen to your favorite black musical artist for fear of portraying oneself as too black in mixed company.

Bluntly, it's choosing whiteness over blackness.

As damaging as all of this is, it's not even the worst part. The worst part is that black folks have internalized white's stereotypical thoughts and fears about us to boot. Since white society upholds a view of black people as dangerous, criminal, and inferior, we internalize those notions even when we know that they are stereotypes, and thus untrue. In a 1993 interview with Bob Herbert of The New York Times, Reverend Jesse Jackson made the following statement:

"There is nothing more painful to me at this stage of my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved."

If a man who has dedicated his life to fighting the inequality and unfair treatment of blacks in America can fall susceptible to the white supremacist ideologies that are ubiquitous in American society, then surely we all can. If a pre-school aged child is more willing to choose the white baby doll over the black one that mirrors her, then what other notions will she embrace after being fed white supremacist ideologies, blatantly and subtly, over a lifetime?

Upholding white supremacist ideology is the acceptance of white messages of our presumed inferiority, dangerousness, and wrongness, while maintaining their racist views of us. This is what causes us to question the black victim instead of the white abuser. We embrace the idea that we are inherently wrong.

Now more than ever, is a time for critical vigilance. We need to become critically vigilant about the messages that are forced on us about ourselves, and monitor what we choose to receive. We need to acquire an awareness of what is at stake for those that are feeding us these messages. We must reject those notions that degrade our humanity, and don't represent the true spectrum of what it means to be black. We need to regurgitate and refuse the assumption of inferiority that we've been fed about ourselves, and represent our truth. We must stand with dignity and affirm our humanity. If we don't, who will? Stay woke.

Photo: Shutterstock

Angela Souza is passionate about the healing ability of storytelling through writing. She exercises this passion through her own writings, which include poetry, essays, and a marriage blog that offers advice to newlyweds. You can find more of her work at Love Notes by Jazzymae Photography. Angela is a native of Cleveland, Ohio. She received her B.A. in Sociology and Religious Studies from Case Western Reserve University in 2010. She resides there with her two beautiful sons, Noah and Ezra, and husband Omari.

by Vida Biggins

On Saturday, July18th, at the center of a stage at Netroots Nation meant to provide a platform for the voices of presidential hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, stood a woman with dark brown skin, a kinky afro, wooden earrings, and the words “Black Love” boldly printed across her chest. She held the microphone—which I imagine could only have been pried from her hands—as protesters chanted slogans like “Black lives matter,” and “Say her name.”

by Jaimee A. Swift

During a recent diversity training, the discussion about race and racism emerged and the question was posed to the group about allyship in the Black Lives Matter movement.

by Evan Seymour

Last weekend, Kylie Jenner posted a picture on Instagram of herself wearing cornrows, a move which sparked all sorts of angry comments and insults from some of her followers. The most high-profile of Jenner’s critics was Hunger Games star Amandla Stenberg. This is not the first time the actress has been vocal on social media about the appropriation of black culture, but it was the first time she was specific with her calling-out of the practice, honing in on a single individual. Stenberg's comment read: "when u appropriate black features and culture but fail to use ur position of power to help black Americans by directing attention towards ur wigs instead of police brutality or racism #whitegirlsdoitbetter."

by Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo

Note: I will use the term n-words, when referring to “nigga” and “nigger” collectively.

Since the moment Jay-Z launched the music-streaming service Tidal at the end of March, the rapper-turned-mogul has been on the defensive. I will not rehash all of the criticisms being leveled at Tidal, as they are well articulated here and here for starters; suffice it to say that if the company survives, Jay-Z will likely be doing damage control for a long time. I, on the other hand, am pretty excited about Tidal. While I haven’t actually purchased the app, the reception of its launch has provided me with plenty of food for thought as it relates to the business of music, the diminishing power of celebrities in society, and the politics of being black in corporate America. Tidal’s launch has even indirectly provided me with the angle I needed in order to finally finish this think-piece about rap and the n-words I have been struggling to write since last summer. Let me explain.

by Anna Gibson

This week, President Barack Obama came under fire for saying the N-word while guest starring on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast. In the podcast, Obama states:

by Crystal St. Marie Lewis

I’m certain you’ve heard the news by now. Nine Black people were murdered last night at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church in Charleston, South Carolina. The gunman, a White man, reportedly attended Bible study and prayed with his victims before launching into a tirade about how Black people are “taking over the country” and “raping white women.” He opened fire on the congregants, killing most of those in attendance, including the Rev. Senator Clementa Pinckney.

by Anna Gibson

Black Twitter practically exploded last week, when news broke that Rachel Dolezal, a prominent civil rights activist and President of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, had been lying about her race. After posing as a Black woman for nearly ten years, Dolezal’s parents revealed that she’s actually white.

by Anna Gibson

“Black parents almost universally say they talk to their kids about discrimination, and black boys are given “the talk” by the time they’re in middle school: Keep your hands out of your pockets, don’t wear a hooded sweatshirt, your curfew is 9. I don’t care what time your friends have to be home.”

As the recent article “Can Racism be Stopped in the Third Grade?” in New York Magazine quotes, racism is an all too stark reality for black parents and their children. As the widespread spats of police violence against Michael Brown and Tamir Rice would indicate, black children are more likely to be demonized in tragic instances of police violence. They are also often seen as older and more dangerous than their white counterparts. With these realities in mind, how can society address the problem? Closing our eyes to the issue would be detrimental. The Fieldston Lower School is trying to create a dialogue around race that will help children honestly affirm both their differences and similarities to each other.

by Quanisha Smith


During a conference I attended recently, I had an interesting interracial dialogue with a White woman. A conference participant mentioned that the presence of a White staff member during the event and more intimate group meetings bothered her and a few other people. She discussed the importance of having spaces sans White folks. While the event attendees were predominately Black, the conference was not a space dedicated solely for Black women. I shared the participant’s concern with my White colleague, to which she replied, “It sounds like insecurity to me.” My colleague is an ally and fully supports the event’s mission but in this instance her thinking showed otherwise. She unintentionally perpetuated racism, while consciously thinking she was helping to uplift Black women.

by Kimberly Foster

Last week, Starbucks Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz announced the company's Race Together campaign to open a national dialogue on race relations. In partnership with USA Today, the coffeemaker is encouraging baristas to facilitate these conversations within their shops "in an effort to create more empathy and understanding."