1. In Chapter four titled Academy Training you learned about academies and the different approaches they take in training police recruits.  In Washington D.C., the Metropolitan Police Department teaches its recruits about Behavioral Science.  Question:  How important is this lesson, especially in todays environment which pits community versus the police?  Be specific when answering the question and give examples. at least be 8 sentences.

2. based on the reading authored by critical race scholar Alana Lentin, please explain the problem with replacing race with multiculturalism in debates on human differences/minority groups. And how, do you think, does multiculturalism tie in with racism in the United States?For those of you who want to further improve their understanding of the term multiculturalism beyond this week’s assigned reading, I suggest you skim through the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on multiculturalism. must be at least 8 sentences. ( articles will be provided)

3. Frank Serpico was a plain clothes NYPD officer who decided not to take part in the embedded corruption that was embedded in the NYPD.When bosses wouldn’t listen, he and another cop, Sgt. David Durk, found their way to the New York Times.For Friday write 400 words on who Serpico is/was, mention the history of corruption and the impact. What is the current impact (if any).And, as this a class on the Media and Police, make reference to the significance the NY Times played (as well as the impact of the best selling book and blockbuster film). Police bosses know about such corruption for years (as did elected officials). How did the media – in this case the NY Times force a change in decades long practices?Cite information. Not your own opinion.

lawurgentasapon time

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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Multiculturalism
First published Fri Sep 24, 2010

Multiculturalism is a body of thought in political philosophy about the proper way to respond to cultural and
religious diversity. Mere toleration of group differences is said to fall short of treating members of minority
groups as equal citizens; recognition and positive accommodation of group differences are required through
“group-differentiated rights,” a term coined by Will Kymlicka (1995). Some group-differentiated rights are
held by individual members of minority groups, as in the case of individuals who are granted exemptions
from generally applicable laws in virtue of their religious beliefs or individuals who seek language
accommodations in schools or in voting. Other group-differentiated rights are held by the group qua group
rather by its members severally; such rights are properly called group rights, as in the case of indigenous
groups and minority nations, who claim the right of self-determination. In the latter respect, multiculturalism
is closely allied with nationalism.

While multiculturalism has been used as an umbrella term to characterize the moral and political claims of a
wide range of disadvantaged groups, including African Americans, women, gays and lesbians, and the
disabled, most theorists of multiculturalism tend to focus their arguments on immigrants who are ethnic and
religious minorities (e.g. Latinos in the U.S., Muslims in Western Europe), minority nations (e.g. Catalans,
Basque, Welsh, Québécois), and indigenous peoples (e.g. Native peoples in North America, Maori in New
Zealand).

1. The claims of multiculturalism

2. Justifications for multiculturalism

2.1 Communitarian

2.2 Liberal egalitarian

2.3 Postcolonial

3. Critique of multiculturalism

3.1 Cosmopolitan view of culture

3.2 Toleration requires indifference, not accommodation

3.3 Diversion from a “politics of redistribution”

3.4 Egalitarian objection

3.5 Problem of vulnerable “internal minorities”

4. Political backlash against multiculturalism
Bibliography
Related Entries

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Other Internet Resources

1. The claims of multiculturalism

http://plato.stanford.edu/index.html

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Multiculturalism is closely associated with “identity politics,” “the politics of difference,” and “the politics of
recognition,” all of which share a commitment to revaluing disrespected identities and changing dominant
patterns of representation and communication that marginalize certain groups (Young 1990, Taylor 1992,
Gutmann 2003). Multiculturalism is also a matter of economic interests and political power; it demands
remedies to economic and political disadvantages that people suffer as a result of their minority status.

Multiculturalists take for granted that it is “culture” and “cultural groups” that are to be recognized and
accommodated. Yet multicultural claims include a wide range of claims involving religion, language,
ethnicity, nationality, and race. Culture is a notoriously overbroad concept, and all of these categories have
been subsumed by or equated with the concept of culture (Song 2008). Language and religion are at the heart
of many claims for cultural accommodation by immigrants. The key claim made by minority nations is for
self-government rights. Race has a more limited role in multicultural discourse. Antiracism and
multiculturalism are distinct but related ideas: the former highlights “victimization and resistance” whereas
the latter highlights “cultural life, cultural expression, achievements, and the like” (Blum 1992, 14). Claims
for recognition in the context of multicultural education are demands not just for recognition of aspects of a
group’s actual culture (e.g. African American art and literature) but also for the history of group subordination
and its concomitant experience (Gooding-Williams 1998).

Examples of cultural accommodations or “group-differentiated rights” include exemptions from generally
applicable law (e.g. religious exemptions), assistance to do things that the majority can do unassisted (e.g.
multilingual ballots, funding for minority language schools and ethnic associations, affirmative action),
representation of minorities in government bodies (e.g. ethnic quotas for party lists or legislative seats,
minority-majority Congressional districts), recognition of traditional legal codes by the dominant legal
system (e.g. granting jurisdiction over family law to religious courts), or limited self-government rights (e.g.
qualified recognition of tribal sovereignty and federal arrangements recognizing the political autonomy of
Quebec) (for a helpful classification of cultural rights, see Levy 1997).

Typically, a group-differentiated right is a right of a minority group (or a member of such a group) to act or
not act in a certain way in accordance with their religious obligations and/or cultural commitments. In some
cases, it is a right that directly restricts the freedom of non-members in order to protect the minority group’s
culture, as in the case of restrictions on the use of the English language in Quebec. When the right-holder is
the group, the right may protect group rules that restrict the freedom of individual members, as in the case of
the Pueblo membership rule that excludes the children of women who marry outside the group.

2. Justifications for multiculturalism
2.1 Communitarian

One justification for multiculturalism arises out of the communitarian critique of liberalism. Liberals are
ethical individualists; they insist that individuals should be free to choose and pursue their own conceptions
of the good life. They give primacy to individual rights and liberties over community life and collective
goods. Some liberals are also individualists when it comes to social ontology (what some call methodological
individualism or atomism). Atomists believe that you can and should account for social actions and social
goods in terms of properties of the constituent individuals and individual goods. The target of the
communitarian critique of liberalism is not so much liberal ethics as liberal social ontology. Communitarians
reject the idea that the individual is prior to the community, and that the value of social goods can be reduced

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to their contribution to individual well-being. They instead embrace ontological holism, which views social
goods as “irreducibly social” (Taylor 1995). This holist view of collective identities and cultures underlies
Charles Taylor’s normative case for a multicultural “politics of recognition” (1992). Diverse cultural
identities and languages are irreducibly social goods, which should be presumed to be of equal worth. The
recognition of the equal worth of diverse cultures requires replacing the traditional liberal regime of identical
liberties and opportunities for all citizens with a scheme of special rights for minority cultural groups.

2.2 Liberal egalitarian

A second justification for multiculturalism comes from within liberalism. Will Kymlicka has developed the
most influential theory of multiculturalism based on the liberal values of autonomy and equality (Kymlicka
1989, 1995, 2001). Culture is said to be instrumentally valuable to individuals, for two reasons. First, it
enables individual autonomy. One important condition of autonomy is having an adequate range of options
from which to choose. Cultures provide contexts of choice, which provide and make meaningful the social
scripts and narratives from which people fashion their lives (cf. Appiah 2005). Second, culture is
instrumentally valuable for individual self-respect. Drawing on theorists of communitarianism and
nationalism, Kymlicka argues that there is a deep and general connection between a person’s self-respect and
the respect accorded to the cultural group of which she is a part. It is not simply membership in any culture
but one’s own culture that must be secured because of the great difficulty of giving it up.

Kymlicka moves from these premises about the instrumental value of cultural membership to the egalitarian
claim that because members of minority groups are disadvantaged in terms of access to their own cultures (in
contrast to members of the majority culture), they are entitled to special protections. It is worth noting that
Kymlicka’s liberal egalitarian argument for cultural accommodations reflects a central idea of a broader body
of what critics of the view have identified as “luck egalitarianism” (Anderson 1999, Scheffler 2003). Luck
egalitarians argue that individuals should be held responsible for inequalities resulting from their own
choices, but not for inequalities deriving from unchosen circumstances. The latter inequalities are the
collective responsibility of citizens to redress. Kymlicka suggests that the inequality stemming from
membership in a minority culture is unchosen (just as the inequality stemming from one’s native talents and
social starting position in life are unchosen). Insofar as inequality in access to cultural membership stems
from luck and not from one’s own choices, members of minority groups can reasonably demand that
members of the majority culture share in bearing the costs of accommodation. Minority group rights are
justified, as Kymlicka argues, “within a liberal egalitarian theory…which emphasizes the importance of
rectifying unchosen inequalities” (Kymlicka 1995, 109).

One might question whether cultural minority groups really are “disadvantaged” or suffer a serious
inequality. Why not just enforce antidiscrimination laws, stopping short of any positive accommodations for
minority groups? Kymlicka and other liberal theorists of multiculturalism contend that antidiscrimination
laws fall short of treating members of minority groups as equals; this is because states cannot be neutral with
respect to culture. In culturally diverse societies, we can easily find patterns of state support for some cultural
groups over others. While states may prohibit racial discrimination and avoid official establishment of
religion, they cannot avoid establishing one language for public schooling and other state services (language
being a paradigmatic marker of culture) (Kymlicka 1995, 111; Carens 2000, 77–78; Patten 2001, 693).
Cultural or linguistic advantage can translate into economic and political advantage since members of the
dominant cultural community have a leg up in schools, the workplace, and politics. Cultural advantage also
takes a symbolic form. When state action extends symbolic affirmation to some groups and not others in
establishing the state language and public symbols ad holidays, it has a normalizing effect, suggesting that

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one group’s language and customs are more valued than those of other groups.

In addition to state support of certain cultures over others, state laws may place constraints on some cultural
groups over others. Consider the case of dress code regulations in public schools or the workplace. A ban on
religious dress burdens religious individuals, as in the case of Simcha Goldman, a U.S. Air Force officer, who
was also an ordained rabbi and wished to wear a yarmulke out of respect to an omnipresent God (Goldman v.
Weinberger, 475 US 503 (1986)). The case of the French state’s ban on religious dress in public schools,
which burdens Muslim girls who wish to wear headscarves to school, is another example (Bowen 2007,
Laborde 2008). Religion may command that believers dress in a certain way (what Peter Jones calls an
“intrinsic burden”), not that believers refrain from attending school or going to work (Jones 1994). Yet,
burdens on believers do not stem from the dictates of religion alone; they also arise from the intersection of
the demands of religion and the demands of the state (“extrinsic burden”). While intrinsic burdens are not of
collective concern (bearing the burdens of the dictates of one’s faith—prayer, worship, fasting—is an
obligation of faith), when it comes to extrinsic burdens, liberal multiculturalists argue that assisting cultural
minorities through exemptions and accommodations is what egalitarian justice requires.

While offered as a general normative argument for minority cultural groups, liberal multiculturalists
distinguish among different types of groups. For instance, Kymlicka’s theory of liberal multiculturalism
offers the strongest form of group-differentiated rights—self-government rights—to indigenous peoples and
national minorities because their minority status is unchosen; they were coercively incorporated into the
larger state. In contrast, immigrants are viewed as voluntary economic migrants who chose to relinquish
access to their native culture by migrating. Immigrant multiculturalism (what Kymlicka calls “polyethnic
rights”) is understood as a demand for fairer terms of integration through mostly temporary measures (e.g.
exemptions, bilingual education) and not a rejection of integration (Kymlicka 1995, 113–115).

2.3 Postcolonial

Lastly, some philosophers have looked beyond liberalism in arguing for multiculturalism. This is especially
true of theorists writing from a postcolonial perspective. The case for tribal sovereignty rests not simply on
premises about the value of tribal culture and membership, but also on what is owed to Native peoples for the
historical injustices perpetrated against them. Reckoning with history is crucial. Proponents of indigenous
sovereignty emphasize the importance of understanding indigenous claims against the historical background
of the denial of equal sovereign status of indigenous groups, the dispossession of their lands, and the
destruction of their cultural practices (Ivison 2006, Ivison et al. 2000, Moore 2005, Simpson 2000). This
background calls into question the legitimacy of the state’s authority over aboriginal peoples and provides a
prima facie case for special rights and protections for indigenous groups, including the right of self-
government.

A postcolonial perspective also seeks to develop models of constitutional and political dialogue that
recognize culturally distinct ways of speaking and acting. Multicultural societies consist of diverse religious
and moral outlooks, and if liberal societies are to take such diversity seriously, they must recognize that
liberalism is just one of many substantive outlooks based on a specific view of man and society. Liberalism is
not free of culture but expresses a distinctive culture of its own. This observation applies not only across
territorial boundaries between liberal and nonliberal states, but also within liberal states and its relations with
nonliberal minorities. As Bhikhu Parekh argues, liberal theory cannot provide an impartial framework
governing relations between different cultural communities (2000). He argues instead for a more open model
of intercultural dialogue in which a liberal society’s constitutional and legal values serve as the initial starting

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point for cross-cultural dialogue while also being open to contestation. James Tully surveys the language of
historical and contemporary constitutionalism with a focus on Western state’s relations with Native peoples to
uncover more inclusive bases for intercultural dialogue (1995).

3. Critique of multiculturalism
3.1 Cosmopolitan view of culture

Some critics contend that the multicultural argument for the preservation of cultures is premised on a
problematic view of culture and of the individual’s relationship to culture. Cultures are not distinct, self-
contained wholes; they have long interacted and influenced one another through war, imperialism, trade, and
migration. People in many parts of the world live within cultures that are already cosmopolitan, characterized
by cultural hybridity. As Jeremy Waldron (1995, 100) argues, “We live in a world formed by technology and
trade; by economic, religious, and political imperialism and their offspring; by mass migration and the
dispersion of cultural influences. In this context, to immerse oneself in the traditional practices of, say, an
aboriginal culture might be a fascinating anthropological experiment, but it involves an artificial dislocation
from what actually is going on in the world.” To aim at preserving or protecting a culture runs the risk of
privileging one allegedly pure version of that culture, thereby crippling its ability to adapt to changes in
circumstances (Waldron 1995, 110; see also Benhabib 2002 and Scheffler 2007). Waldron also rejects the
premise that the options available to an individual must come from a particular culture; meaningful options
may come from a variety of cultural sources. What people need are cultural materials, not access to a
particular cultural structure.

In response, multicultural theorists agree that cultures are overlapping and interactive, but still maintain that
individuals belong to distinct societal cultures and wish to preserve these cultures (Kymlicka 1995, 103). The
justifications for special protections for minority cultural groups discussed above still hold, even in the face
of a more cosmopolitan view of cultures, for the aim of group-differentiated rights is to empower members of
minority groups to continue their distinctive practices if they wish to.

3.2 Toleration requires indifference, not accommodation

A second major criticism of multiculturalism is based on the ideas of liberal toleration and freedom of
association and conscience. If we take these ideas seriously and accept both ontological and ethical
individualism as discussed above, then we are led to defend the individual’s right to form and leave
associations and not any special protections for groups. As Chandran Kukathas (1995, 2003) argues, there are
no group rights, only individual rights. By granting cultural groups special protections and rights, the state
oversteps its role, which is to secure civility, and risks undermining individual rights of association. States
should not pursue “cultural integration” or “cultural engineering” but rather a “politics of indifference”
toward minority groups (2003, 15). The major limitation of this laissez-faire approach is that groups that do
not themselves value toleration and freedom of association (including the right to dissociate or exit a group)
may practice internal discrimination against group members, and the state would have little authority to
interfere in such associations. This benign neglect approach would permit the abuse of vulnerable members
of groups (the problem of internal minorities discussed below), tolerating “communities which bring up
children unschooled and illiterate; which enforce arranged marriages; which deny conventional medical care
to their members (including children); and which inflict cruel and ‘ununsual’ punishment” (Kukathas 2003,
134).

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3.3 Diversion from a “politics of redistribution”

A third line of critique contends that multiculturalism is a “politics of recognition” that diverts attention from
a “politics of redistribution” (Barry 2001, Fraser and Honneth 2003). We can distinguish analytically between
these modes of politics: a politics of recognition challenges status inequality and the remedy it seeks is
cultural and symbolic change, whereas a politics of redistribution challenges economic inequality and
exploitation and the remedy it seeks is economic restructuring. Working class mobilization tilts toward the
redistribution end of the spectrum, and the LGBT movement toward the recognition end. Critics worry that
multiculturalism’s focus on culture and identity diverts attention from or even actively undermines the
struggle for economic justice, partly because identity-based politics may undermine potential multiracial,
multiethnic class solidarity and partly because some multiculturalists tend to focus on cultural injustice
without much attention to economic injustice.

In response, multiculturalists emphasize that both redistribution and recognition are important dimensions in
the pursuit of equality for minority groups. In practice, both modes of politics—addressing material
disadvantages and marginalized identities and statuses—are required to achieve greater equality across lines
of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexuality, and class, not least because many individuals stand at the
intersection of these different categories and suffer multiple forms of marginalization. Most egalitarians are
focused on redistribution, but recognition is also important not only on account of its effects on
socioeconomic status and political participation but also for fostering the symbolic inclusion of marginalized
groups.

3.4 Egalitarian objection

A fourth objection takes issue with liberal multiculturalist’s understanding of what equality requires. Brian
Barry argues that religious and cultural minorities should be held responsible for bearing the consequences of
their own beliefs and practices. He contrasts religious and cultural affiliations with physical disabilities and
argues that the former do not constrain people in the way that physical disabilities do. A physical disability
supports a strong prima facie claim to compensation because it limits a person’s opportunities to engage in
activities that others are able to engage in. In contrast, religion and culture may shape one’s willingness to
seize an opportunity, but they do not affect whether one has an opportunity. Barry argues that justice is only
concerned with ensuring a reasonable range of equal opportunities and not with ensuring equal access to any
particular choices or outcomes (2001, 37). When it comes to cultural and religious affiliations, they do not
limit the range of opportunities one enjoys but rather the choices one can make within the set of opportunities
available to all.

In reply, one might argue that opportunities are not objective in the strong physicalist sense suggested by
Barry. The opportunity to do X is not just having the possibility to do X without facing physical
encumbrances; it is also the possibility of doing X without incurring excessive costs or the risk of such costs
(Miller 2002, 51). State law and cultural commitments can conflict in ways such that the costs for cultural
minorities of taking advantage of the opportunity are prohibitively high. In contrast to Barry, liberal
multiculturalists argue that many cases where a law or policy disparately impacts a religious or cultural
practice constitute injustice. For instance, Kymlicka points to the Goldman case discussed above and other
religion cases, as well as to claims for language rights, as examples in which group-differentiated rights are
required in light of the differential impact of state action (1995, 108–115). The argument here is that since the
state cannot achieve complete disestablishment of culture or be neutral with respect to culture, it must
somehow make it up to citizens who are bearers of minority religious beliefs and native speakers of other

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languages. Where complete state disestablishment is not possible, one way to ensure fair background
conditions is to provide roughly comparable forms of assistance or recognition to each of the various
languages and religions of citizens. To do nothing would be to permit injustice.

3.5 Problem of vulnerable “internal minorities”

A final objection (and one that has received the most attention in recent scholarly debates about
multiculturalism) argues that extending protections to minority groups may come at the price of reinforcing
oppression of vulnerable members of those groups—what some have called the problem of “internal
minorities” or “minorities within minorities” (Green 1994, Eisenberg and Spinner-Halev 2005). Multicultural
theorists have focused on inequalities between groups in arguing for special protections for minority groups,
but group-based protections can exacerbate inequalities within minority groups. This is because some ways of
protecting minority groups from oppression by the majority may make it more likely that more powerful
members of those groups are able to undermine the basic liberties and opportunities of vulnerable members.
Vulnerable subgroups within minority groups include religious dissenters, sexual minorities, women, and
children. A group’s leaders may exaggerate the degree of consensus and solidarity within their group to
present a united front to the wider society and strengthen their case for accommodation.

Some of the most oppressive group norms and practices revolve around issues of gender and sexuality, and
many feminist critics have highlighted the tensions between multiculturalism and feminism (Okin 1999,
Shachar 2000). This is a genuine dilemma if one accepts both that group-differentiated rights for minority
cultural groups are justifiable, as multicultural theorists do, and that gender equality is an important value, as
feminists have emphasized. Extending special protections and accommodations to patriarchal cultural
communities may help reinforce gender inequality within these communities. Examples include conflicts
over polygamy, arranged marriage, the ban on headscarves in France, “cultural defenses” in criminal law,
accommodating religious law or customary law within the dominant legal system, and self-government rights
for indigenous communities that deny equality to women in certain respects (Deveaux 2006, Phillips 2007,
Shachar 2001, Song 2007).

The “internal minorities” objection is especially troublesome for liberal egalitarian defenders of
multiculturalism who aim to promote inter-group equality while also challenging intra-group inequality,
including gender inequality. In response, Kymlicka (1999) emphasizes that multiculturalism, like feminism,
aims at a more inclusive conception of justice; both challenge the traditional liberal assumption that equality
requires identical treatment. To address the concern about internal minorities, Kymlicka distinguishes
between two kinds of group rights: “external protections” are rights that a minority group claims against non-
members in order to reduce its vulnerability to the economic and political power of the larger society,
whereas “internal restrictions” are rights that a minority group claims against its own members. He argues
that a liberal theory of minority group rights cannot accept the latter (1995, 35–44; 1999, 31).

But granting “external protections” to minority groups may sometimes come at the price of “internal
restrictions,” as is the case when the right of self-government is accorded to a group that violates the rights of
its members by limiting freedom of conscience or upholding sexually discriminatory membership rules.
Whether multiculturalism and feminism can be reconciled within liberal theory depends in part on the
empirical premise that cultural groups that seek group-differentiated rights do not support patriarchal norms
and practices. If they do, liberal multiculturalists would in principle have to argue against extending the group
right or extending it with certain qualifications, such as conditioning the extension of self-government rights
to indigenous groups on the acceptance of a constitutional bill of rights.

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An alternative response to the problem of internal minorities is a democratic rather than a liberal one. Liberal
theorists tend to start from the question of whether and how minority cultural practices should be tolerated or
accommodated in accordance with liberal principles, whereas democratic theorists foreground the role of
democratic deliberation and ask how affected parties understand the contested practice. By drawing on the
voices of affected parties and giving special weight to the voice of women at the center of gendered cultural
conflicts, deliberation can clarify the interests at stake and enhance the legitimacy of responses to cultural
conflicts (Benhabib 2002, Deveaux 2006). Deliberation also provides opportunities for minority group
members to expose instances of cross-cultural hypocrisy and consider whether and how the norms and
institutions of the larger society, whose own struggles for gender equality are incomplete and ongoing, may
reinforce rather than challenge sexist practices within minority groups (Song 2007). What constitutes gender
subordination and how best to address it is not straightforwardly clear, and intervention into minority cultural
groups without drawing on the voices of minority women themselves may not best serve their interests.

4. Political backlash against multiculturalism
The greatest challenge to multiculturalism may not be philosophical but political. At the start of the twenty-
first century, there is talk of a retreat from multiculturalism as a normative ideal and as a set of policies in the
West. There is little retreat from recognizing the rights of minority nations and indigenous peoples; the retreat
is restricted to immigrant multiculturalism. Part of the backlash against immigrant multiculturalism is based
on fear and anxiety about foreign “others” and nostalgia for an imagined past when everyone shared thick
bonds of identity and solidarity. Nativism is as old as migration itself, but societies are especially vulnerable
to it when economic conditions are especially bad or security is seen to be threatened. In the U.S. the cultural
“others” are Latino immigrants, especially unauthorized migrants. Since September 11, Muslim minorities
have also come under new scrutiny in the U.S., and concerns over security and terrorism have been invoked
to justify tougher border control. The number of Muslim immigrants in North America remains relatively
small in comparison to Western Europe, where Muslims have become central to scholarly and popular
debates about multiculturalism. The concern is not only over security but also the failures of multiculturalism
policies to integrate and offer real economic opportunities to foreigners and their descendants.

The political backlash against multiculturalism raises new challenges for defenders of multiculturalism. What
is the relationship between multiculturalism and the integration of immigrants? Is liberal multiculturalism the
most desirable framework for the integration of immigrants? Is integration governed by an ideal of
multicultural citizenship the proper goal of liberal democratic states? Why not a common citizenship based
on the same set of rights and opportunities for all individuals? Why not transnationalism, which
acknowledges people’s multiple attachments, or a genuinely global moral cosmopolitanism, which aims to
transcend group attachments?

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Replacing ‘race’, historicizing ‘culture’ in
multiculturalism

ALANA LENTIN

ABSTRACT Lentin sets out to unravel the history of the discourse of culturalism in

the post-Second World War period. Culture is now almost universally used to

categorize distinct human groups and to refer to the differences between them. As

the liberal acceptance of multiculturalism as a recipe for contemporary living

affirms, the use of culture as a viable conceptualization of human difference often

goes unchallenged in present-day scholarship. Lentin focuses on how the concept of

‘culture’ came to replace the language of ‘race’ in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

Looking at the history of the ‘UNESCO tradition’ of anti-racism, she shows how

racial categorizations were replaced by cultural distinctions as a means of explaining

human difference. Whereas ‘race’ was seen as irrevocably invoking the superiority of

some human groups over others, culture was assumed by anti-racist scholars on

both sides of the Atlantic to imply a positive celebration of difference while allowing

for the possibility for progress among groups once considered ‘primitive’. Lentin

argues that such a shift, on which the western discourse of anti-racism is grounded,

by merely replacing ‘race’ with ‘culture’, fails to expunge the ranking of humanity

implied by theories of ‘race’. The essentialization of ‘cultures’ inherent within this

cultural relativism is carried through into multicultural approaches to education,

policymaking and activism that fail to include the dominant group in their

schematization of contemporary social and political relations. Furthermore, the

failure of culturalist approaches to counter racism effectively has been attributed to

the purported identity politics of ‘minority groups’. Contrary to the notion that

culture has come to pervade politics due to a bottom-up call from the marginalized

for greater recognition of their cultural ‘authenticity’, Lentin shows how culturalism

originated within the anti-racist elite and has resulted in the depoliticization of the

anti-racism of racism’s actual targets.

KEYWORDS anti-racism, culturalism, culture, interculturalism, multiculturalism, race,
racism

I
n the West, the first years of the new millennium are being marked by a
growing public preoccupation with the supposed incompatibility of

diverse groups of people, at both a global and a local level. The ongoing
‘war on terror ’, launched by the United States and its allies in response to the
attacks of 11 September 2001, is defined by a discourse that pits ‘civilizations’
against each other in a Manichaean struggle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’,

Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 39, No. 4, 2005

ISSN 0031-322X print/ISSN 1461-7331 online/05/040379-18 # 2005 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/00313220500347832

‘enlightened’ and ‘barbaric’. Likewise, at the level of western nation-states,

problems such as the erosion of national identity, the lack of political

participation, the decline of the welfare state and urban unrest have been put

down to the allegedly unmanageable diversity of contemporary postcolo-

nial, immigration societies. Commentators who have voiced fears about

what they see as the over-extension of cultural diversity have linked them to

a critique of multiculturalism, a policy of western nation-states that is now

pronounced ‘in crisis’ by governments and thinkers alike.1

In response, in countries such as the United Kingdom and the Nether-

lands, anti-racists have rushed to defend multiculturalism and denounce the

return to assimilationist policies that is increasingly being witnessed, for

example, under the present New Labour regime in Britain.2 While criticism

of the insistence on the primacy of ‘national values’ by current governments

is crucial, the opposition made between multiculturalism and assimilation-

ism in such critiques overlooks an important point. The policy of multi-

culturalism itself was not historically the outcome of the struggle by

‘minority communities’ for greater recognition, as is often supposed.3 On

the contrary, multiculturalism can be seen as an institutional policy that, by

replacing an analysis of the link between racism and capitalism with a focus

on the importance of cultural identity, depoliticized the state-centred anti-

racism of the racialized in postcolonial societies. In order to conceptionalize

the current debate about multiculturalism, which is far from being the first,4

it is crucial to set its terms in a wider political-historical context: namely, the

culturalization of politics that marks the post-war period in the West and the

inextricable relationship this has with racism in the history of modernity.
Accordingly, I intend to look critically at one of the ways in which culture

has come to dominate the language of politics in the post-war era, namely, by

means of the struggle to eradicate racism in the aftermath of the Holocaust. I

will look at one specific and central aspect of this ensemble of campaigns: the

approach taken by UNESCO, which in turn informed the anti-racist policy of

many western states. As was revealed by my research into the development

of the discourse and practice of anti-racism in Europe,5 the UNESCO

approach also informs what can be thought of as the mainstream anti-racism

practised by many in the anti-racist movement, governmental agencies,

supranational institutions and NGOs. I suggest that a look at the history of

this anti-racist project may throw light on the artificial nature of the divide

1 See, for instance, David Goodhart, ‘Too diverse?’, Prospect , February 2004.
2 Arun Kundnani, ‘Rally round the flag’, IRR News (online news network), 7 April 2004,

available at www.irr.org.uk/2004/april/ak000006.html (viewed 1 August 2005).
3 Cf. Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press 2004).

4 Cf. Paul Gilroy, ‘The end of anti-racism’, in James Donald and Ali Rattansi (eds), ‘Race’,

Culture and Difference (London: Sage 1992).
5 Alana Lentin, Racism and Anti-racism in Europe (London and Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto

Press 2004).

380 Patterns of Prejudice

between ‘race’ and ‘culture’, and influence the way we look back on the

evolution of multiculturalism.
This mainstream and institutionalized approach to racism in the western

societies of the post-war era is based on a belief that racism, propelled by

aberrant extremists, comes from the outside to infect society. It therefore, to

my mind, fails to place the racism of the postcolonial western world

satisfactorily in the political and historical context of its evolution from the

Enlightenment through slavery, colonialism and the Holocaust. As such,

mainstream approaches often adopt a psycho-social attitude to racism,

seeing it as the problem of pathological or ignorant individuals. Therefore,

they propose individually based solutions, emphasizing the need to over-

come ignorance through education and a greater knowledge of the Other.

Finally, whereas they may admit the wrongdoing of governments, they

avoid connecting racism with the historical development of the modern

European state, thereby seeing racism as an aberration of democracy and the

public political culture of the modern European nation-state.6 Such a view

contrasts strongly with the argument of those such as Hannah Arendt or

Zygmunt Bauman,7 and largely accepted by many theorists of ‘race’ and

racism, that, far from being external to the capitalist liberal-democratic

nation-state, modern racism was a consequence of modernity. In particular,

the political conditions brought about by the institutionalization of nation-

alism in the modern European nation-state, the need for populations of these

territorial units to be defined vis-à-vis external Others, made race-thinking

politically relevant and, indeed, expedient.
Looking critically at the way in which the approach of western govern-

ments to tackling racism has evolved over time can help us to uncover the

foundations of the ‘multicultural regime’. Multiculturalism may be thought

of as being a regime because, in many ways, it has become an ideological

straitjacket and critical distance from it has been all but abolished. As a policy,

multiculturalism would have us see our societies as ‘race-free’ and culturally

rich. However, with the commendable aim of shunning those who condemn

6 In my theorization of anti-racism, I used John Rawls’s concept of ‘public political
culture’ to describe the way in which the various discourses of anti-racism position
themselves in relation to the state (Lentin, Racism and Anti-racism in Europe ). According
to Rawls, public political culture is a set of ‘familiar ideas’ that ‘play a fundamental role
in society’s political thought and how its institutions are interpreted’ (John Rawls,
Justice and Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press 2001), 5�/6). I argued that anti-racist principles may be seen as
belonging to a wider set of principles contained in the public political culture of
western, liberal-democratic nation-states. The extent to which anti-racists adhere to or
critique these notions informs us as to their stance on the relationship between ‘race’
and state.

7 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York and London: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich 1966); Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Polity
Press 1989).

ALANA LENTIN 381

societal diversity, it has become impossible to see clearly the artificiality of the
divide between ‘race’ and ‘culture’ within official discourses that valorizes
culture while*/albeit strenuously*/demonizing ‘race’. The emphasis placed
on the difference between these two means of categorizing human difference
often serves to mask the persistence of racism in what is widely believed to be
a post-racial age.8 Indeed, a multicultural approach to living together in the
diverse societies of the post-war western world was built on ways of
conceptualizing and suggesting solutions for racism that, by bypassing
history and politics, enabled culturalist interpretations to come to the fore. We
cannot, therefore, discuss multiculturalism historically without looking at
how it evolved out of an increasing emphasis on culture as a means of
bringing about a state of ‘racelessness’.9

The culturalist approach to opposing racism becomes dominant precisely
because it focuses on the need to find an alternative to ‘race’ as an adequate
means of describing human differences. The antidote to racism, according
to this thinking, is the denial of the viability of ‘race’ as a category and
the introduction of alternative conceptual tools based on culturalized
understandings, such as ethnicity or, more recently, identity. By concentrat-
ing on the need to replace ‘race’ at all costs, proponents of this form of anti-
racism have denied the necessity of historicizing the emergence of racism,
not as a mere pseudo-science, but as an ideology that came to dominate
politics from the end of the nineteenth century until the Second World
War.

This denial has led today to a failure to disentangle ‘race’ and state.
Furthermore their interconnectedness remains largely obscured despite the
introduction of affirmative action and quota policies in many countries and
admissions of institutional racism, most significantly that following the 1997
Macpherson inquiry into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in
the United Kingdom.10 While we may accept that individual institutions
contain racist elements or have even become steeped in a culture of racism,
extending this to the idea that the state itself may be structured by racism is
generally considered to be an extremist position. The success with which
racism has been portrayed as a type of fungus that grows on the body
politic means that we generally believe that, in a postcolonial, post-
Holocaust era, racism has been expunged from the realm of the state and
that any residues that persist lurk on the fringes of politics and society. For
these reasons, campaigns against racism often focus on the activities of far-
right groups and individual cases of racially motivated hate crime. While
these should by no means be ignored, the constant identification of racism
with the actions of the politically marginal enables the apparently more

8 David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State (Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell 2002).
9 Ibid.
10 William Macpherson, The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry: Report of an Inquiry by Sir William

Macpherson of Cluny, Cm 4262-I (London: Stationery Office 1999).

382 Patterns of Prejudice

banal, everyday racism experienced by the racialized in all social, political,
economic and private spheres to be played down. In addition, today, the
increasing control over asylum and immigration has led to the criminaliza-
tion of migrants and a public acceptance that their detention and
deportation is necessary for the protection of national interests. Never-
theless, these state policies are accompanied by a declared commitment by
governments to ‘tackling racism’, which brings about a situation in
which*/despite all evidence to the contrary*/the belief that racism exists
outside of the state and that, therefore, immigration policies are not racist
but merely common sense has become ingrained in the contemporary
western consciousness.

In order to provide a solid, historically grounded argument for my claim
that multiculturalism emerges from culturalist responses to racism that
depoliticize anti-racist discourses and obscure the link between ‘race’ and
state, I will, first, offer a brief history of the so-called ‘UNESCO tradition’ at
the core of culturalist anti-racism. I then go on to critique the idea that
became prominent in the 1980s and 1990s, and that largely dominates
thinking on racism in the West today, that a so-called cultural racism has
come to dominate its biological predecessor and, more importantly, that its
appearance is due to the diffusion of anti-racist, anti-colonialist and
‘minoritarian’ discourses in society. In conclusion, I discuss how the
predominance of cultural interpretations of human differences and their
official endorsement suppress state-centred critiques of racism that focus on
‘race’ as, above all else, a political idea that, chameleon-like, adapts itself to a
variety of political circumstances.

The roots of culturalism: the UNESCO tradition

Martin Barker introduced the idea of a ‘UNESCO tradition’ of anti-racism in
reference to the opposition to racism-as-science, one of the central principles
of the anti-racism of the inter- and post-war years.11 This branch of anti-
racism, first promoted by anti-racist scientists and anthropologists such as
Franz Boas, Julian Huxley and Otto Klineberg in the 1930s, was based on a
belief in the necessity of defeating racism on its own terms, as first and
foremost a science that could, therefore, be disproved. This approach, based
on an a priori separation between ‘race’ and politics was considered by its
promoters to be the most effective way of establishing the impracticality of
racism as a system for making sense of human diversity.

UNESCO first brought together its panel of ‘world experts’ in 1950. Their
meeting resulted in the publication of the UNESCO Statement on Race and
Racial Prejudice which, having been updated several times, still serves as the
basis for the UN position on racism. The Statement, as well as pamphlets on

11 Martin Barker, ‘Empiricism and racism’, Radical Philosophy, no. 33, Spring 1983, 6�/15.

ALANA LENTIN 383

various issues related to racism written by the various members of the
panel,12 formed the basis of the anti-racist policy of post-war international
institutions, a policy that was also widely adopted by western governments.
The Statement is well characterized by the key idea that emphasizes, as Ivan
Hannaford demonstrates, that a distinction be drawn between ‘race’ and
ethnicity: the former pernicious, the latter a supposedly benign means of
categorizing human beings. This idea assumes that

all men belonged to the same species, Homo Sapiens , that national, cultural,

religious, geographical, and linguistic groups had been falsely termed races; that

it would be better to drop the term and use ‘ethnic groups’ in its place; that the

‘race is everything’ hypothesis was untrue.13

The UNESCO project is mired in two problems, both of which relate to the
argument being made here that culturalist approaches to explaining and
proposing solutions to racism are inadequate because they avoid the
political relationship of ‘reciprocal determination’ between ‘race’ and state.14

The first problem is that UNESCO aimed to tackle racism on its own terms,
namely as a pseudo-science, reasoning that disproving the scientific validity
of ‘race’ would lead to the demise of racism. Second, the project’s authors
(mainly the anthropologists involved) aimed to provide an alternative
explanation of human difference to that of ‘race’ that would serve to rid
the conceptualization of human difference, necessary for making sense of
increasingly diverse populations, of the dangerous reverberations of race-
thinking that were still sounding in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

In order, first, to disprove the validity of the pseudo-scientific concept of
‘race’ it was imperative for the UNESCO panel to diminish the significance
attached to it. This aim nevertheless resulted in a view of racism that denied
its effects on the state and politics, relegating it to the realm of misused
pseudo-science. Point 3(b) of the 1968 version of the UNESCO Statement
reads:

The division of the human species into ‘races’ is partly conventional and partly

arbitrary and does not imply any hierarchy whatsoever. Many anthropologists

stress the importance of human variation, but believe that ‘racial’ divisions have

limited scientific interest and may even carry the risk of inviting abusive

generalisation.15

12 Leo Kuper (ed.), Race, Science and Society (Paris: UNESCO Press and London: George
Allen and Unwin 1975).

13 Ivan Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press 1996), 386.

14 Etienne Balibar, ‘Racism and nationalism’, in Etienne Balibar and Immanuel
Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities (London: Verso 1991), 37�/67.

15 ‘UNESCO Statement on Race and Racial Prejudice’, Current Anthropology, vol. 9, no. 4,
1968, 270�/2 (270).

384 Patterns of Prejudice

However, while the UNESCO project contributed to undermining the

scientific credentials of the ‘race concept’,16 it did not address the political

implications of racism in the history of the West. It failed to deal with the

important fact that, while race-thinking may have had its beginnings in the

scientific or philosophical domain, it was through the medium of politics

that it had been propelled to significance. For example, while the Statement

on Race and Racial Prejudice recognized that the colonial ‘conditions of

conquest’ contributed to racism,17 this did not entail, in the analysis, any

agency on the part of the colonialist state. Furthermore, while admitting the

historically rooted, rather than natural or universal, origins of racism, the

Statement does not expand on the precise character of these origins. On the

contrary, it skims over the history of colonialism and the resultant

‘dependency’ of the colonies to claim that progress had since been achieved

due to the inclusion of many ‘formerly dependent countries’ in international

organizations.18 The formulation of the Statement ignores the power

relations between large and small, western and ‘developing’ states that still

define the workings not only of such institutions, but also of the neo-colonial

dependency that persists despite the official withdrawal of western rule.
The second problem in the UNESCO approach relates more directly to the

history of how culturalist explanations came to dominate understandings of

human difference and be posed as the solution to persistent racism,

interpreted as an irrational prejudice between groups of culturally different

human beings. The UNESCO panel, in particular the anthropologists who

dominated it, wished to replace ‘race’ as a theory of human difference with

‘culture’, seen as a non-hierarchical, and thus more suitable, means of

conceptualizing diversity. The culturalist interpretation of difference em-

phasized in the Statement is epitomized by the following assertion:

Current biological knowledge does not permit us to impute cultural achievements

to differences in genetic potential. Differences in the achievements of different

peoples should be attributed solely to their cultural history. The peoples of the

world today appear to possess equal biological potentialities for attaining any

level of civilization.19

UNESCO wanted to be able to answer questions about why human

groups differed from each other in appearance, in traditions and in levels of

‘progress’. This was perceived to be even more necessary as the immigration

to Western Europe of non-Europeans meant that indigenous populations

16 Elazar Barkan, ‘Race’, in Theodore R. Porter and Dorothy Ross (eds), Cambridge
History of Science. Volume 7. The Modern Social Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 2003).

17 ‘UNESCO Statement on Race and Racial Prejudice’.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid., 270.

ALANA LENTIN 385

were, many for the first time, coming face to face with Others whom they
often considered racially inferior or, at the very least, dangerously
unfamiliar. The concern at this time with ensuring that racism should never
again ‘raise its ugly head’ in places where the assumed homogeneity of
national identity was being transformed by the arrival of newcomers is
directly associated with the subsequent development of the multiculturalist
ideal as a principle for coping with the diversity of contemporary western
societies.

The main proposal made by UNESCO, and most forcefully by Claude
Lévi-Strauss in his short book Race and History,20 was that human groups
could be divided according to cultures that were relative to each other. The
relativity of culture eradicated the hierarchical implication of ‘superiority’
and ‘inferiority’ built into the idea of ‘race’. Therefore, Lévi-Strauss and
UNESCO insisted on the replacement of ‘race’, as a way of categorizing
human difference, with ‘ethnicity’ or ‘culture’. Racism, too, was therefore
replaced by the term ‘ethnocentrism’ which Lévi-Strauss thought more
adequately described the intolerance between different cultural or ethnic
groups; this was considered to be almost inherent in groups and, therefore,
more benign.

The idea that each culture contributed ‘in its own way’ to humanity as a
whole countered the widely accepted belief that a hierarchy of ‘race’ divided
Europeans from non-Europeans. Lévi-Strauss celebrated the diversity of
humanity, demonstrated by what he called the ‘distinctive contributions’ of
each cultural group.21 He claimed that the different levels of progress of such
groups could not be attributed to any innate differences. Rather, progress
comes about as a result of interaction between groups. The historical chance
that led to the onset of modernity taking place in the West meant that the
other cultures that rubbed shoulders with the Occident experienced more
rapid progress. Those that remained isolated did not. In the culturally
relativist framework adopted by Lévi-Strauss, which so greatly influenced
the UNESCO approach and which formed the basis of the multiculturalist
approach to the ongoing discrimination of non-Europeans in western
societies, the differences between human groups were seen as fortuitous
and almost arbitrary.

By so forcefully making this point, Lévi-Strauss rightly critiques a
Eurocentric notion of progress, which he sees as emerging from the
evolutionist idea that all cultures are merely stages towards a single model
of humanity epitomized by the West. Rejecting the idea of ‘primitive’ and
‘civilized’ cultures and the ideal of assimilation, Lévi-Strauss proposed that
the only means to curb ethnocentrism was through the greater exchange
of knowledge between different cultures. This interculturalist objective
underpins the anti-racism that dominates the policy of international

20 Claude Lévi-Strauss, Race and History (Paris: UNESCO Press 1952).
21 Ibid.

386 Patterns of Prejudice

institutions, such as the United Nations and the Council of Europe, to this
day.

There is a twist, however, to Lévi-Strauss’s celebration of cultural diversity
and his advocacy of greater intercultural knowledge. The anthropologist
claimed that the ideal of a ‘world civilization’, based on what he described as
a fact of cultural diversity, would only be worth pursuing if each culture
were to retain its originality. The more different the cultures involved
were from each other, the more fruitful the intercultural communication.
However, the only way to ensure diversity was actually to enforce the
stratification of human groups according to colonialism’s class hierarchies.
As multicultural society became a reality, Lévi-Strauss feared that cultural
diversity would become a thing of the past. This extreme approach to the
idea of cultural diversity, as something static within which cultural groups
would ideally remain hermetically sealed despite the fact that they would
increase their knowledge of each other, reveals the problems associated with
anthropology’s involvement in the search for solutions to the ongoing
problem of racism. While certainly no longer universally the case, the legacy
of the anthropologists’ role in colonialist regimes and their contribution to an
exoticizing and reifying view of non-European cultures cannot be comple-
tely overlooked.

The UNESCO tradition that developed out of the contributions of thinkers
such as Lévi-Strauss overlooked the complexities of such arguments and,
indeed, later elaborations of them, such as Lévi-Strauss’s own re-evaluation
of Race and History in his essay entitled ‘Race et Culture’.22 The approach it
outlined was based on three fundamental principles that formed the basis of
the proposed solution to the persistent problem of what now had become
known as ‘ethnocentrism’.

. Because ‘race’ has no scientific validity, it should be replaced by ‘culture’
or ‘ethnicity’, and the notion of racism by that of ethnocentrism;

. the benefits of cultural diversity should be promoted as a means of
enriching society; and

. greater knowledge of other cultures among western societies should be
encouraged in order to bring about awareness of the ‘fact’ of cultural
diversity on a global scale and to combat the inclination of ignorant and
prejudicial human beings to adopt ethnocentric attitudes.

There are three main problems arising from this package of solutions
proposed by UNESCO that have a direct bearing on the way in which
multicultural approaches to racism have affected the politics of anti-racism
specifically and the lived experience of many racialized people in
western societies more generally. First, by proposing that racism is a

22 Claude Lévi-Strauss, ‘Race et Culture’, in C. Lévi-Strauss, Le Regard eloigné (Paris: Plon
1983).

ALANA LENTIN 387

misconstrued attitude based on misleading, pseudoscientific information,
the UNESCO approach implies that it can, therefore, be overcome at the
level of the individual without questioning the role of the state. This
approach forms part of what is today a widespread attitude to racism, one
that characterizes analyses of institutionalized and state racism as the
paranoia of ‘minorities’ or the extreme left. Racism, from this commonsense
perspective, is the pathological problem of ignorant individuals who ‘know
no better’, an analysis based on an in-built class stereotyping that equates
racism mainly with working-class ignorance. This interpretation of racism
psychologizes and individualizes it, making it impossible to propose
political analyses or solutions. Therefore, slavery, colonialism, the Holo-
caust and contemporary discrimination against immigrants can only be
interpreted as aberrations and not as political components of modern
nation-states.

The second problem entailed in the UNESCO project is that to propose
‘culture’ as an alternative to ‘race’ does little, contrary to the belief of those
such as Lévi-Strauss, to refute the widely accepted view that groups are
organized hierarchically according to levels of progress. While theoretically
accepting the validity of ‘different but equal’ cultures, the transposition of
this principle into anti-racist action was nevertheless accompanied in
practice by paternalism because, as Lévi-Strauss himself observed, the
principle of cultural relativism could only work if ‘cultures’ were kept in
isolation from each other. Once populations moved, they were naturally
influenced by living in a new society and interpreting its codes for
themselves on the basis of their own lived experience. However, when
non-white, non-European populations were confronted with racism in the
western societies to which they had come as immigrants, they were often
confronted with the fixed anti-racism of the local left that assumed that, as
newcomers, immigrants lacked knowledge about the workings of the society
and would require guidance before acquiring political and social maturity.
This was a particular problem in the early anti-racism of the white left in
post-war Europe, which allied itself with the romantic figure of the anti-
colonial freedom fighter but found it difficult in practice to make political
space for immigrant activists in the metropole. On the contrary, the idea
prevailed that white people had a duty to help new immigrants, producing a
paternalistic attitude that reproduced the idea of western superiority over
so-called Third World backwardness.

Finally, the idea that people can be assigned to different groups according
to culture is powerless to avoid the essentialism implied by ‘race’. Whether
or not it is as pernicious as an idea, culture is no less reifying. Here we
can see the direct link to the critique of multiculturalism that has often
been formulated. Multiculturalism has been accused of seeing cultural
groups as internally homogeneous and static, and of being unable to make
room for the necessary hybridization that comes about as populations
originating in various parts of the globe share space in the urban

388 Patterns of Prejudice

metropole.23 Moreover, the homogeneity of culture is almost always evoked
by members of the dominant culture in reference to that of so-called
minority groups. In such a schema, the dominant culture is rarely
scrutinized, but merely accepted as the norm. Therefore, it is common to
hear references to ‘ethnic’ food and music on the assumption that this only
refers to what does not originate within the national space. While it is less
frequent for what are considered to be cultural characteristics to be put
down to genetic differences, there is a tendency to talk in stereotypes about
‘Muslim values’, ‘black attitudes’ or ‘Asian work ethics’. Such stereotyping
of groups, many of whose members have lived in western societies for
several generations, belies the influence that common living in multicultural
societies has on everyone. The persistence of racism that often consists in the
ghettoization of racialized groups should not be confused with the common
perception that ‘minority groups’ naturally choose to live in cultural
enclaves. The frequency with which such attitudes are expressed strengthens
the suggestion I am making here that the shift from ‘race’ to ‘culture’ or
‘ethnicity’ is little more than a cosmetic one in terms of the impact it has on
the actual experience of racism.

Cultural racism, identity politics and the misconstrual of authenticity

The culturalist approach epitomized by the UNESCO tradition has domi-
nated ideas about how to interpret and propose solutions to racism in the
post-war western world. Beyond this, it has also contributed to a belief,
which came to prominence in the 1980s, that anti-racism could be held
responsible for the emergence of a new culturalist racism, heralded by
groups on the far right such as the French Front National. However, while it
is true, as several commentators have pointed out,24 that the language of
cultural relativism was adopted by the far right in an overt effort to shun
blatant racism in favour of a discourse of cultural incompatibility, it is
mistaken to attribute the diffusion of culturalism itself to the rise of identity
politics. What I am suggesting is that commentators who have proposed that
the call for the recognition of the cultural specificity of ‘minority’ groups in
western societies is a process that originates at the grassroots, with the
marginalized or racialized themselves, have failed to historicize adequately
the way in which multicultural approaches to targeting discrimination have

23 Cf. Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis, Racialised Boundaries: Race, Nation, Gender,
Colour and Class and the Anti-racist Struggle (London and New York: Routledge 1992);
Gilroy, ‘The end of anti-racism’.

24 Pierre-André Taguieff, La Force du prejugé: Essai sur le racisme et ses doubles (Paris: La
Découverte 1989); Pierre-André Taguieff (ed.), Face au racisme , 2 vols (Paris: La
Découverte 1991); Verena Stolcke, ‘Talking culture: new boundaries, new rhetorics of
exclusion in Europe’, Current Anthropology, vol. 36, no. 1, 1995, 1�/24.

ALANA LENTIN 389

evolved. As I demonstrated in the previous section, culturally based
explanations of human difference and culturalist solutions to racism
emerged out of an elite project, piloted by the United Nations and

legitimized by renowned academics. To blame the racialized for the
culturalization of politics and the resultant depoliticization of anti-racism
is to misunderstand the origins of the culturalist project and to disregard the
choice often faced by black and ‘minority ethnic’ anti-racists, from the 1980s
on, between adopting the language of multiculturalism or ceasing to be
socially and politically engaged.

The idea that the culturalist approach to the fight against racism has

contributed to the rise in acceptability of the discourse of the far right
originates with the idea of a new cultural racism. The ‘new racism’ is
epitomized by the idea that cultures should be seen as separate but equal.
The translation of this in far-right, nationalist rhetoric is that each culture
deserves its own homeland in which its members can live undisturbed by
others. Publicly, proponents of this view claim that, just like Europeans,
immigrants too would be happier ‘at home’, in their ‘natural surroundings’.
The idea of a new racism was first proposed in 1981 by Martin Barker in his
analysis of the relationship between Thatcherism in the United Kingdom
and the rise of sociobiology as a means of proving the incompatibility
between the inherently different ways of life of British people and
‘immigrants’. The new racism was based on the idea that ‘it is in our

biology, our instincts, to defend our way of life, traditions and customs
against outsiders’.25 Barker insisted, however, that culturalism was an elite
discourse that infected the racist politics of fringe groups from the top down
because it had been legitimized by both the governing Conservative Party
and by key thinkers in the academy.

In contrast to Barker’s perspective, cultural, or so-called differentialist,
racism was analysed in a very different way by Pierre-André Taguieff.
Taguieff proposed that the success that cultural racism had enjoyed in

appealing to the French public in the late 1980s, as seen in growing support
for the Front National, was due to anti-racism, which he saw as having been
propelled by anti-colonialists and the far left. Taguieff suggested in several
works on the nature of anti-racism that anti-racists had been responsible for
creating the language used to such effect by the racists of the Front
National.26 The diffusion of the discourse of cultural relativism has,
according to Taguieff, directly enabled the resuscitation of a far-right politics
whose association with the distasteful history of European fascism had led to
its previous decline.

25 Martin Barker, The New Racism: Conservatives and the Ideology of the Tribe (London:
Junction Books 1981), 23�/4.

26 Taguieff, La Force du prejugé ; Taguieff (ed.), Face au racisme, vol. 1: Les moyens d’agir and
vol. 2: Analyses, hypothèses, perspectives; Pierre-André Taguieff, Les Fins de l’antiracisme
(Paris: Michalon 1995).

390 Patterns of Prejudice

Taguieff is a self-styled French republican thinker whose more recent work
has targeted Islam in France as the carrier of a ‘new Judaeophobia’ that poses
a threat both to Jews and to the principles of laicité upon which the French
state was ostensibly founded.27 Therefore, while professing his commitment
to fighting racism, he opposes what he sees as the ‘communitarianization’ of
anti-racism, namely, the association of the opposition to racism with the
experiences of the targets of racist discrimination. His stance is one
commonly adopted in France whereby anti-racist principles are established
by reference to a public political culture that upholds the belief that the
French state is foundationally anti-racist. This form of anti-racism, practised
by organizations such as SOS Racisme and the Ligue contre le racisme et
l’antisémitisme (LICRA), is referred to as ‘generalist’ because it seeks to
appeal as widely as possible to the general public, and therefore refuses to be
seen as associated with what are written off as being the ‘particularist’
concerns of racialized people. As was pointed out in an interview with a
representative of SOS Racisme:

From the moment that we would rely on a communitarian model, we would lose

all our power and all our force because we wouldn’t be speaking to everyone’s

hearts. We would not be speaking to 60 million people, we’d be speaking to the

victims concerned. And the victims concerned are not the majority of the activist

force.28

Taguieff blames anti-racism for the emergence of culturalist racism. He
ignores the heterogeneity of anti-racism. Rather, he identifies it wholly
with the actions of the extreme left and those whom he sees as being anti-
western, epitomized by anti-colonialists such as Frantz Fanon. Furthermore,
he proposes that cultural relativism has destroyed any chance that the
struggle against racism*/associated exclusively with the activities of the far
right*/might succeed. Cultural relativism is seen as stemming from the
insistence of those of non-European origin on creating exclusivist commu-
nities that threaten the secular and assimilatory ethos of French republican
political culture. Nowhere does he admit the possibility that the ‘ghettoiza-
tion’ and ‘communitarianization’ that he sees as so damaging may not have
been the outcome of a choice made by those of immigrant origin in Europe,
but rather the result of the state racism that persists despite official
endorsements of equality and meritocracy and a publicly professed
commitment to ‘weeding out’ racism.

The possibility of blaming racialized ‘communities’ for the diffusion of the
language of cultural racism is founded on a purposeful misreading of the
development of culturalism, which was top-down and not, as Taguieff
would have it, bottom-up. This misreading is based on a view of identity

27 Pierre-André Taguieff, La Nouvelle Judéophobie (Paris: Milles et une nuits 2002).
28 Quoted in Lentin, Racism and Anti-racism in Europe , 185.

ALANA LENTIN 391

politics that claims that political action by ‘minority groups’ is solely

founded on a need for the culture of each ‘community’ to be equally

valorized in a diverse society. The ‘politics of recognition’ are based,29 it is

claimed, on the significance of authenticity as a means both for establishing

internal cohesion within a given ‘community’ and for seeking legitimacy in

the public sphere. Like Taguieff, Charles Taylor sees Fanon’s thinking as

fundamental to notions of authenticity and recognition. Taylor’s misreading

of Fanon is a useful example of how culturalism came to be associated, not

with the elite anti-racism of the international institutions, but with the self-

organized anti-racism of the racialized in the postcolonial West.
Taylor bases his view of identity politics on what he claims to be a search

for authenticity in the process of throwing off domination. And he attributes

the concept of authenticity in the contemporary world to Frantz Fanon.

Fanon argues that the main weapon of colonization was the imposition of

the image of the colonizers on the subjugated so that they were no longer

recognized*/even by themselves*/outside of a view of them constructed by
their oppressors.30 Ignoring Fanon’s grappling with the ontology of black

people’s existence in Black Skin, White Masks , Taylor dwells on Fanon’s

justification of violence in the process of decolonization in The Wretched of the

Earth . During this period, Fanon’s writings emphasized the assimilation of

the culture of the oppressor as characteristic of colonization and the creation

of the ‘native’ by the settler. He calls for the effects of colonization on the

colonized to be consciously reversed through the shattering of the self-

perception of oneself as subjugated resulting from oppression.
Taylor confuses his own view of the ideal of authenticity as a model for

society with Fanon’s advocacy of violence as a necessary stage towards the

achievement of national self-determination for the colonized. He then links

this artificial connection to his theorization of contemporary identity politics.

By doing so, he purposefully avoids the very strangeness of Fanon’s

situation: a Martinican who had elected to fight for Algerian liberation

from French rule, under which his own country had elected to remain.

Taylor’s view that Fanon’s appeal to authenticity is a foundation of present-

day collective action by ‘minority’ groups for recognition skims over the

vital fact that, for Fanon, the achievement of national liberation must eschew

any appeal to ethnicity or ‘race’. Fanon recognized how nationalism comes

to rely on racism when he remarked that the ‘racial and racist level is

transcended’ in an Algerian nation that must emerge on the basis of will and

consciousness and not on the grounds of shared ethnicity.31 The openness of

Fanon’s vision of the membership of a new self-determined nation opposes

29 Taylor, Multiculturalism .
30 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press 1963); Frantz Fanon,

Black Skins, White Masks (London: Pluto Press 1967).
31 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth , 108.

392 Patterns of Prejudice

the essentialism of the authentic identity that Taylor claims it is necessary to
construct for the achievement of equal recognition.

Taylor fails to read Fanon’s own ambivalent relationship to the authen-
ticity claims made by the advocates of negritude. Ultimately, Fanon sees
negritude as a transitory stage in the process of decolonization but not as an
end in itself. Such an authentic identity cannot be sustained because to do so
would be to belie the extent to which the ‘Negro’ has been brought into
existence by the white man. The impossibility therefore of ‘returning’ to a
precolonial authenticity is evident in Fanon’s explanation of his condition: ‘I
wanted to be typically Negro*/it was no longer possible. I wanted to be
white*/that was a joke.’32 Fanon’s negritude is a pragmatic position bound
up more with a concern for making the Black visible as such, independent of
the white gaze. However, it is clear that, for Fanon, visibility is of little use
without self-determination, not in the individualist sense applied to it by
Taylor but as a process of freeing a people from colonial rule. As David Theo
Goldberg notes, ‘being recognised, whether as self-conscious or as Other,
and thus being visible, requires that one be outside the Other’s imposition,
free of the Other’s complete determination’.33 Therefore, the recourse to
authentic negritude can be a first step towards humanizing the colonized by
making them visible. Its necessity, however, can begin to be reconsidered
once self-determination is established in order to create a new politics that,
as Barnor Hesse suggests,34 particularizes Eurocentric universalism by
constructing itself in opposition to it.

Culturalism and the depoliticization of anti-racism: contemporary
effects

The history of anti-racism in Europe reveals that the political project of those
facing racism that attempted to ground itself in a Fanonian commitment to
lived experience as a key to interpreting racial domination has always faced
suppression. This has come both from the right and from those generally on
the left who have looked for anti-racist responses in western public political
culture and denounced the self-organized anti-racism of the racialized as
‘communitarian’, ‘particularist’ or ‘culturalized’. I have attempted to show
that a culturalized view both of the interpretation of racism and the solutions
proposed to it was a top-down project that was then mis interpreted as
emerging out of identity politics as a search for authenticity. This reading
ignores the fact that, with the diffusion of multicultural policymaking,

32 Fanon, Black Skins, White Mask , 132.
33 David Theo Goldberg, Racial Subjects: Writing on Race in America (New York and

London: Routledge 1997), 81.
34 Barnor Hesse, ‘‘‘It’s your world’’: discrepant M/multiculturalisms’, in Phil Cohen

(ed.), New Ethnicities, Old Racisms (London : Zed Books 1999).

ALANA LENTIN 393

political demands in reaction to racial discrimination could only be framed
in a culture-oriented language that sees intercultural knowledge as the key
to combating so-called ‘ethnocentrism’. Politicized approaches that stress
institutionalized racism and that look to ground the anti-racist project in the
lived experience of racism’s targets have been seen as counter-productive to
the aim of creating a generally non-racist society.

What have been the repercussions of the dominance of culturalism and the
concomitant marginalization of self-organized, state-centred anti-racism?
First, the replacement of ‘race’ with ‘culture’ has done little to counter the
idea that humanity is organized hierarchically. This is due to the fact that
difference has been culturalized by Europeans and imposed on others as a
means of coping both with the recent history of the West and with the
diversification of its societies. As such, like universalist values, cultural
difference is theorized in relation to a European standard that escapes the
relativization that it proposes for others.

Within the logic of multiculturalism, the members of non-white and/or
non-European cultural groups are generally thought of as internally
homogeneous. Members of these purported cultures are essentialized as
such. This essentialization often acts like racialization: so-called minorities
are pigeon-holed and as a result rendered invisible. Once an individual has
been assigned to his/her cultural group and tucked away at the fringes of
society (both metaphorically and often geographically), any sense of
hybridity or heterogeneity is lost.

Many theorists, artists, musicians and writers have emphasized the
fluidity of cultural identities. Yet, without challenging the underlying
reasons why culture dominates our understandings, this is unlikely to
have a significant impact in the realm of politics and policymaking. Thinking
culturally about difference is the default position for not talking about ‘race’
and avoiding the charge of racism. But this very need for such a substitute
covers up the fact that the hierarchy put in place by racism has been
maintained. It no longer exists as blatant persecution. It is more ambivalent.
It can continue precisely because it has been deleted from official discourse.
The ultimate signal that it has been rejected is the fact that it has been
replaced: ‘benign’ culture has taken over from virulent ‘race’.

Nevertheless, racism persists. And this is even admitted by elites. Their
response is also formulated in terms of culture. Multiculturalism, intercul-
turalism and diversity management have, over the years, been different ways
of talking about the same thing: how to ‘integrate’ difference and curb the
problems that it may lead to. However, it is now increasingly obvious that
culturalist policies have not brought about the end of racism. This is because
neither multiculturalism nor its updated version*/interculturalism*/ques-
tions the very reason for the focus on culture.

People targeted by racism generally see through the idea that recognizing
cultural differences, providing for them and encouraging others to learn
about them will bring an end to discrimination. At local, national and

394 Patterns of Prejudice

European levels, virtually the only anti-racist projects that receive funding
are those that mobilize culture under one form or another. Mainstream anti-
racist organizations propose that culture is the best way to break down
barriers and increase tolerance. They thus organize concerts of so-called
‘ethnic music’, food festivals and even intercultural football matches. As my
research revealed, in Italy, for example, groups such as the Roma or
Senegalese communities are invited to share their food and music with
local Italians as a way of bringing ‘cultures’ together, despite the fact that
some of them have lived in Italian society for up to two decades. As one of
my British interviewees from the Campaign against Racism and Fascism
pointed out in a comment made about the problem of receiving financial
support for anti-racist activities:

I don’t think we got any money from the European Union at all . . . what was

funded was not anti-racist work. It was cultural work, multicultural work. The

best way to get funding was multicultural work, not stuff that was going to be

critical of state institutions.35

There is a widely accepted perception that culture is inherently devoid of
politics. It is therefore possible for states, supranational institutions and
private bodies close to them to promote anti-racist initiatives without calling
into question the participation of state institutions in racist discrimination.
Even the admission of institutional racism by the Metropolitan Police in the
United Kingdom following the 1997 Macpherson inquiry has primarily
engendered policies of ‘inclusion’ and ‘diversification’ within institutions
that fail to transform the culture of racism by which they are structured.
Indeed, these policies fail to scratch the surface to reveal the often deeply
racist premises on which these institutions have been built.

There is an idea in our multicultural societies that it is futile to historicize
the development of the concepts we take for granted. Instead, we can revel
in our cultural richness, ignoring all those for whom the official embrace of
diversity makes little difference to their daily lives. The story of how the
potentially liberating, political tool of culture was harnessed in the aim of
bypassing ‘race’ and the real effects of racism may assist us in the vital
project of rethinking multiculturalism at a time when it is being challenged
by those on the political right who seek to replace it with policies that
emphasize the primacy of national identity. Rethinking multiculturalism
must not mean an acceptance of the new assimilationism that, as Arun
Kundnani rightly points out,36 seeks to impose the symbols of patriotic
allegiance on populations for whom, happily, the need for a strong
nationalist identity has been progressively being eroded. It should rather
signal the necessity of challenging classifications that would not have been

35 Quoted in Lentin, Racism and Anti-racism in Europe , 289.
36 Kundnani, ‘Rally round the flag’.

ALANA LENTIN 395

chosen by those they aim to describe. This may pave the way towards
questioning the way in which notions of identity and belonging are
conceived, by whom they are developed and for what purpose: not only
in theory but in political practice.

Alana Lentin holds an EC Outgoing International Fellowship at the City
University of New York where she is continuing her research, begun at
Oxford University, on the link between globalization, immigration and
collective action. She is the author of Racism and Anti-racism in Europe (Pluto
Press 2004).

396 Patterns of Prejudice

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2/28/16 8:52 PMRace and Racial Identity Are Social Constructs – NYTimes.com

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Race and Racial Identity Are Social Constructs

Angela Onwuachi-Willig, a professor of law at the University of Iowa College of Law, is the author of “According to Our Hearts: Rhinelander v. Rhinelander and the Law of the
Multiracial Family.”

Updated June 17, 2015, 1:40 PM

Race is not biological. It is a social construct. There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks or all whites. Were race “real” in the genetic sense, racial classifications
for individuals would remain constant across boundaries. Yet, a person who could be categorized as black in the United States might be considered white in Brazil or colored in
South Africa.

Unlike race and racial identity, the social, political and economic meanings of race, or rather belonging to particular racial groups, have not been fluid.

Like race, racial identity can be fluid. How one perceives her racial identity can shift with experience and time, and not simply for those who are multiracial. These shifts in
racial identity can end in categories that our society, which insists on the rigidity of race, has not even yet defined.

As I explain in my book “According to Our Hearts,” whites in interracial black-white marriages or relationships frequently experience a shift in how they personally understand
their individual racial identity. In a society where being white (regardless of one’s socioeconomic class background or other disadvantages) means living a life with white skin
privileges — such as being presumed safe, competent and noncriminal — whites who begin to experience discrimination because of their intimate connection with someone of
another race, or who regularly see their loved ones fall prey to racial discrimination, may begin to no longer feel white. After all, their lived reality does not align with the social
meaning of their whiteness.

That all said, unlike race and racial identity, the social, political and economic meanings of race, or rather belonging to particular racial groups, have not been fluid. Racial
meanings for non-European groups have remained stagnant. For no group has this reality been truer than African-Americans. What many view as the promising results of the
Pew Research Center’s data on multiracial Americans, with details of a growing multiracial population and an increasing number of interracial marriages, does not foreshadow
as promising a future for individuals of African descent as it does for other groups of color.

Unlike their multiracial peers of Asian and Native American ancestry who tend to view themselves as having more in common with monoracial whites than with Asians or
Native Americans, respectively, multiracial adults with a black background — 69 percent of whom say most people would view them as black — experience prejudice and
interactions in ways that are much more closely aligned with members of the black community. In fact, the consequences of the social, political and economic meanings of race
are so deep that my co-author Mario Barnes and I have argued that whites who find themselves discriminated against based on racial proxies such as name (for example, Lakisha
or Jamal), should have actionable race discrimination claims based on such conduct. In sum, the fact that race is a social construct, defined by markers such as skin color, hair
texture, eye shape, ancestry, identity performance and even name, does not mean that racial classifications are free of consequence or tangible effects.

More than 50 years ago, Congress enacted the most comprehensive antidiscrimination legislation in history, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Half a century later in 2015, the same
gaps in racial inequality remain or have grown deeper. Today, the unemployment rate for African-Americans remains more than double that for whites, public schools are more

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javascript:;

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http://www.law.uiowa.edu/faculty/angela-onwuachi-willig.php

http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=0300166826

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2015/06/2015-06-11_multiracial-in-america_final-updated

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=870048

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/09/06/black-unemployment-is-always-much-worse-than-white-unemployment-but-the-gap-depends-on-where-you-live/

2. US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s

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2/28/16 8:52 PMRace and Racial Identity Are Social Constructs – NYTimes.com

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segregated now than they were in the 1950s and young black males are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by the police than their white male peers. Even a white fourth-
grade teacher in Texas, Karen Fitzgibbons, openly advocated for the racial segregation of the 1950s and 1960s on her Facebook page.

Where will we be 50 years from now? Need I answer that question? It definitely won’t be in a post-racial society.

Join Opinion on Facebook and follow updates on twitter.com/roomfordebate.

Topics: race

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Jo

Canada 27 days ago

I’m black and honestly could not believe what I read. The statements in this article made me cringe. The author basically states that what Rachel Dolezal did (and anyone else
who has ever done or will do the same)was perfectly fine. She implies that right at the beginning where she gives the example of a white person who experiences interracial
relationship with a black person. The experience makes them less white because suddenly their privilege is lessened or potentially gone. Like, really?

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Caite Morris

Los Angeles 14 December 2015

okay i am 15 years old i am a white/asain high school sophomore and while you may be exponentially more intelligent than i could ever hope to be the last paragraph of your
article was blatantly wrong you stated that “public schools are now more segregated than they were in the 1950s” that is mind numbingly idiotic for a women of your status. as a
country we have made significant strides swards racial equality, now in the eyes of the law every man woman are equal. it is the way that a person is raised that that can
segregate a certain race or gender. brown vs the board of education was in 1954 meaning before that a person with any african decent could not have attended any school in the
US. you could not have gotten the education needed for you to become a law professor not only would you be a second class citizen because of your race your gender would
also have held you back. as one final example before i return to my hw which is the only reason i have to read this article in the first place, i liked a black boy over the summer,
now lets say i liked him in the 1950s his life would be in danger if i looked at him, now i can explore having a relationship with any race i chose and so can he, so you cannot
actually believe that the public school system is more segregated today than it was 60 years ago.

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Rachel Booker

Connecticut 7 January 2016

Ok, I can see your point that we’ve made a lot of progress in being less racist since the 1950’s, but that doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. Racism is definately still there,
and it still poses problems for modern-day minorities. If I were you, I would trust the woman who actually reaserched this and can back up her claims.

2. US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/10/young_black_men_21_times_more_likely_to_be_shot_dead_by_police_than_whites.html

http://www.salon.com/2015/06/11/im_almost_to_the_point_of_wanting_them_all_segregated_texas_teacher_pens_breathtakingly_racist_mckinney_post/

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http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/racial-fluidity-complicates-the-value-we-assign-to-race

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2/28/16 8:52 PMRace and Racial Identity Are Social Constructs – NYTimes.com

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Larry Lundgren

Linköping, Sweden 25 June 2015

Please, Room for Debate Editors, read the long series of heated exchanges between Josh Hill and others in the comment section for this statement. Then do the following:
Discuss future Room for Debate forums with a basic title something like:

American conceptions of race as held by distinctly different groups of researchers.

This would clearly require more than one Room for Debate forum.

One group of researchers would be those like Svante Pääabo, another might be American medical researchers contrasted with, for example, a set of European medical
researchers.

These forums would keep my Connecticut friend, Josh Hill, fully occupied and I would have a ball reading the comments.

Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com

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as

New York 23 June 2015

There is a simple way to eliminate racism and a lot of other ills including patriarchy. Why not make having a baby the natural way illegal? To have a baby women donate an egg
to the government egg bank. Have the government randomize fertilization and if a woman wants a baby she gets a “government egg” implanted. It might be chinese, korean or
black. In nine months there would be no more racism. Right now less than half of the children in school in the US are white. In a decade everyone would be essentially mixed.
Then racism would have to vanish. There would be no white skins and no very dark ones either. Everyone’s skin would be the same. Why do we need races? Does race help
anything? It just causes pain and trouble. Let us get rid of them.

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Mark

New York, NY 20 June 2015

“Race is not biological. It is a social construct…. Were race ‘real’ in the genetic sense, racial classifications for individuals would remain constant across boundaries. Yet, a
person who could be categorized as black in the United States might be considered white in Brazil or colored in South Africa.”

I don’t understand that argument. Somebody regarded as short in the NBA might not be viewed that way someplace else, but that doesn’t mean that height “isn’t biological.”

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DW

Philly 24 June 2015

You make many good points. What I’m trying to say – I admit it gets confusing, especially when the comments don’t stay in order … is that race is not a biological category. The
things that constitute what we think of as race, are for the most part biological. It’s just that they don’t sum into a category called “race,” because there isn’t one. So again, height,
skin color, eye color, hair texture – all biological. But NOT all determined by some sort of pre-set, almost Platonic category called “race.” It’s just a category that doesn’t exist,
biologically. That is not to say people don’t have biological characteristics and it’s not to say that we don’t – in our minds – group people with similar biological characteristics
together into a category we call “race.” But it is SUCH a leaky, permeable category, that the more you try to pin down what a particular race is, the more it just dissolves on you.

(The height of inanimate objects just seems irrelevant to me. The height a HUMAN attains is a biological characteristic of that person.)

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http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15318054

http://only-neverinsweden.blogspot.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15296802

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15279357

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15279357:15305942

2/28/16 8:52 PMRace and Racial Identity Are Social Constructs – NYTimes.com

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Larry Lundgren
Linköping, Sweden 25 June 2015

@ Mark-maybe I can help you understand since I work at the Red Cross here in Linköping with refugees, many of them from Sub-Saharan Africa and none of those who would
be assigned to a race in America are even familiar with the two end-member concepts of race, biological and socially constructed.

My Somali and Eritrean friends and acquaintances define themselves entirely in terms of their ethnicities and their roots in particular cultures in the Horn of Africa. They are
well aware of the range of skin colors in the Sub-Saharan African population. Some Somalis use the term black to refer to individuals from, for example, the Congo, but do not
see themselves as black.

The American race categories have their origin in the Constitution, and the slaves were distinguished from whites in the 1790 Census. With the passage of time various
scientifically minded people created a fatal invention, the concept of race, and those founding fathers clearly saw each group as biologically distinct from the others. Sweden
was one of the countries where some biologists thought in this manner. Then genome science came along and we now have Swedish born Svante Pääbo, perhaps a future Nobel
Prize nominee, making very clear that the American racial classification, seen in biological terms, is absurd.

In the face of that, American sociologists, many of them, embraced social construction so they could continue to do research on groups that they still call black and white.

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Bran

Cullen 19 June 2015

Saying race is a social construct doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean people won’t notice you are black. It doesn’t mean Rachel Dolezal can be black. A white woman saying
she is black should not make Black people question what it means to be black.

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as

New York 18 June 2015

It is not so much race but it is money. Interracial marriage is extremely common when the economic environment is equalized. One sees that, for example, in the US Army. One
sees that with high earning blacks in every area. One reason a guaranteed annual income for all Americans would be helpful. How can a poor black woman hold down two fast
food jobs and raise five kids properly?

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David Chowes

New York City 18 June 2015

YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT . . .

Unfortunately most people see the concept of race as biological. It is in fact just a social construct but most people don’t understand this or in fact don’t know what a “social
construct” is. We have used the color or shade of one’s skin to create different races and this has awful effects.

There is just one race: the human race.

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Trey Lough

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15279357:15317973

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http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15259464

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15256740

2/28/16 8:52 PMRace and Racial Identity Are Social Constructs – NYTimes.com

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Lake Oswego, Oregon 21 August 2015

Thank goodness someone on this message board gets it 😀

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turbot

Philadelphia 17 June 2015

I think that it is poverty and educational issues that lead to the disparities mentioned in the penultimate paragraph.

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Bo

Washington, DC 17 June 2015

“Where will we be in 50 years?” I submit, at the same place we have been for nearly the last 400—fighting racism.

Sure, the Human Genome Experiment confirmed that race is not biological, but rather a social construction, America, as we all know, was not constructed on the basis of the
Human Genome Experiment, but on the lie of white superiority/black inferiority.

As Jerrold M. Packard points out in his book, “American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow,” “The creation of color-based caste was accomplished in lucid steps by groups
more powerful than their prey, for reason both social and economic. Its survival has been nurtured over numberless generations by, among others, Christian and Muslim clerics
and slavers, by historians and the learned of science, and by ordinary people whose purses have grown through its perpetuation.”

Sure, engaging in high-brow conversations about race being socially constructed is good and useful on some level, however, it does nothing to remedy centuries of harm and
brutality that undergirds America to this day, and will for decades or perhaps centuries to come.

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Anthony

Texas 17 June 2015

Race is a social construct. OK, now, what exactly is a “social construct?”

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Josh Hill

is a trusted commenter New London, Conn. 17 June 2015

“Race is not biological. It is a social construct.” Will people just stop it? I mean, stop it! This is the most ridiculous claim I’ve ever read this side of the existence of God. Worse.
You can’t see God, so maybe he’s hiding somewhere. But anyone walking down the street can see evidence of race.

Look, if race were not biological, it wouldn’t be detectable in a DNA test. And yet my DNA test tells me that I’m part Caucasian, part Sub-Saharan African, and, perhaps, part
Siberian/Amerindian. It even tells me something about where my ancestors hailed from within those groups.

So stop the absurd lies! Race *can* be a social construct, to be sure — why else would someone who is 1/16 black be considered black? But it’s absurd — beyond absurd — to
pretend that it doesn’t exist. And when you make that claim, you appeal to the ideological, but the people you want to reach — the rational people who may have misinformation
about race — are going to roll their eyes. Surely, there are enough honest things to say about race that we don’t have to perpetrate a lie?

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http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15256740:15851851

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15255332

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15253348

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15253181

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15254562

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DW

Philly 21 June 2015

“Of course my DNA tells me where my ancestors hailed from! And of course they’re genetically related!”

But that doesn’t make them a “race.” That’s the point you miss. Of course you’re “genetically related” to your brother or sister, and to your ancestors. But it is also true that if you
could identify all your genes you would prove to have just as many, if not by quirk of statistics even more, genes in common with other people up and down your block or in
your office building, and there would prove to be no direct link to the features that you think make you or your neighbor or friend or co-worker a particular “race.” Of course
there are many commonalities between you and people you perceive as being of your race, but they are 1) quite likely to vanish when you try to actually locate a particular set of
genes that might cluster together to produce that impression and 2) nearly as well a product of your own and other people’s perceptions.

Any one single feature that you possess that you think makes you a particular “race,” lots of people from other “races” have it too. It becomes simple logic then – “race” isn’t a
biological category. It’s the way we group things in our mind. Grouping together things it perceives as similar is a thing the human brain does.

There isn’t “race”: there are groupings, regroupings, and ungroupings of people. That’s all there has ever been. The things we perceive as most often clustering together, usually
originated as geographic clusterings.

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Larry Lundgren
Linköping, Sweden 25 June 2015

@ Josh – Josh, I have written to you directly and have filed comments stating that the New York Times comment section just does not work as a place to engage in the
discussion you want to have.

I have asked various Times Editors including Room for Debate Editors to engage a set of experts in genome research to discuss this subject. I am not going to take that point
further here but I am going to suggest to you that your “race” comments might be presented a bit more calmly.

My first contact with you was at the NYT Lens Blog where you called not only me but all scientists who do not believe in your concepts of “race” “Intellectually Dishonest”.
Since my views are based in part on the research and statements of Svante Pääbo, a giant in the world of genome-based research, I could not then and still do not understand why
you write as you do then and now.

Here are your phrases. “Stop it!” “This is the most ridiculous claim I have ever read…” “So stop the absurd.”

Since you and I communicate directly I know that you are a man of reason and in discussing other subjects you present calm and reasoned statements. But not here.

I will be writing to you of course.

I will chance this suggestion. Avoid using “race” and instead write about differences among haplotype groups. Who knows, maybe the potential number of such groups is
infinite. Then tell us how you want to use these.

Larry

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Lindsey

NYC 17 June 2015

I just started reading an engaging, interesting book by History Professor, Yuval Noah Harari, entitled “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.” He presents a number of
intriguing theories on the species and race. It’s worth a read.

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WeRInDenial

Nashville, TN 17 June 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15254562:15283479

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15254562:15318031

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http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15252169

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I completely agree with the comment that it is not correct to refer to “whites” as a monolithic group – people are people and have rich, varied, and dynamic experiences. My
white brother and his wife went to jail for 2 years (misdemeanor environmental neglect – 1 count for each child) for being too poor to have a home with enough bedrooms for
their 7 children (he had just lost his job and they had to live in a small 2 bedroom apartment) – white people also face social and economic injustice that can destroy their
families. This is important because we must all unite around injustice to truly eradicate it. As a white woman married to a black man and with 2 beautiful biracial daughters – I
have had to bail my husband out of jail after he was harassed by TSA for acting like “an angry black man” and not following their commands fast enough. In our early 20s, we
had both been accepted to teach English in Japan but I was fired for being pregnant while he was allowed to go. Life is hard, we all suffer from injustice – can we not unite on
the fact that discrimination in any form is abhorrent?

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Donna

Hanford, CA 17 June 2015

So; now that we ALL can become Black- ( it sounds like the reverse premise of the wonderful book “Black No More”): Rather than having White Privilege, we can receive the
Burden of suspicion, proving one’s self-worth, economic, legal, judicial injustice etc. How many are willing to sign up?

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waldenlake

Charlotte, NC 17 June 2015

I appreciate the author’s definition of race (as a social construct) and her ability to delineate the stakes of racial affiliation for light and dark skinned Americans. However, what I
would like to hear her discuss a bit more are strategic ways to modify the black and white (or ‘white’ and ‘non-white’) binary that continues to drive racial ideology in the
United States. This requires us to discuss the potential role of Asian Americans and Hispanics in adjusting these terms, as well as redefining what race means today.

In the past, the ‘melting pot’ was offered as an ideological means of creating a common culture that was capable of binding a nation of immigrants. (This ideology is partially
reflected in the optimistic ways people interpret current trends in intermarriage.) However, this generally only offered material benefits to those who could visually approximate
some degree of whiteness. And while the Dolezal case could have compelled white Americans to realize their potential affiliations with black Americans, and thus garner more
sympathy between these two camps, most people (including her parents) just wanted to stabilize older categories: ‘Dolezal is white. End of story’.

In my mind, the best lesson the Dolezal case offers us is an increased awareness of our desperate need to transcend the white and black binary we continue to use in this country.
(Yes, we need to discuss race, but using the old labels merely reifies their discriminatory function.)

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Carl Jensen

USA 17 June 2015

I found her premise of no genetic markers to be faulty, there are a number, including the neanderthal gene, but I’d agree that it is meaningless and what we face is a sort of
collision of cultures and world views. The Melting Pot ideology is very much a part of my character as I am a number of national ancestries, many of whom warred before
integrating into the US. I feel no conflict, I identify my culture as being US, and I identify all citizens as being as equal as they care to be. What is commonly called “white
privilege”, however, I disagree with. From the perspective of humanity as a whole, the situation of a majority enjoying natural benefit from being a majority can be found in
almost every nation. As a white man, I’d be a second class citizen in Japan or Zimbabwe as whites simply are not as represented in their societies. Ideally, we will mature past
that at some point in our societal evolution, but we have not yet. This is simply an observation, I have no supporting thesis, but it seems evident to me.
Now, transcending the black and white binary. I absolutely agree that old labels and terms have become laden with emotional charge, such that dialogue often runs afoul of
accidental insult and indignity. I have come to blame both sides of the racial narrative for wanting to talk but not wanting to listen. I wait for emotions to settle, but it may get
worse before it gets better.

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Larry Lundgren
Linköping, Sweden 25 June 2015

A footnote on white. The US Census Bureau classifies Kurds, Iranians, various kinds of Iraqis as belonging to the USCB white race. I can assure anyone that a hijab bearing
women from any of these ethnicities does not have all that much white privilige here in Sweden and probably in the USA.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15250602

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15250156

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15250156:15252881

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15250156:15318360

2/28/16 8:52 PMRace and Racial Identity Are Social Constructs – NYTimes.com

Page 10 of 16http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs

Larry
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Mary

Boston suburb 17 June 2015

For years, it’s been known that – among humans, there is only one race: human.
For years, I’ve been speaking this scientific fact to those who use race incorrectly – and commenting in NYT and other places.
One’s background may be African, Asian, Caucasian, etc., or a mix of many biological origins.
Print and online newspapers and other media content must use language that reflects this truth.
Sad but silly blurbs headline photos online that say: 10, 20 stars you don’t know are black. Photo is always a light skinned, Caucasian featured human. ((Guess it’s still
considered an embarrassment by some that another human is hiding a “drop of black blood.” – as people used to say.)
So, why denigrate the woman who calls herself black. She seems to have done much for justice for African American (black, add your own positive term) groups.
Through the years. She also seems troubled by anger and sad family circumstances.
Language is important. Suggestion: Mark/write”human” or “other” when asked on forms to denote your race.
Official forms must change. Suggestion: “biological background.” Better suggestions, anyone?
(The listed options might include: unknown, uncertain, several, primary. Researchers do use human biological background stats in their work)

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Larry Lundgren
Linköping, Sweden 25 June 2015

@ Mary – Hi Mary, you and I and blackmamba just below your comment have been writing your first sentence for years, to little or no avail. What has come to fascinate me
from looking at my home country from a distance is how fiercely my fellow Americans want to preserve classification by race. Josh Hill is the best example of this. Josh and I
communicate calmly and directly about various matters but as you can see by his many comments when it comes to “race”, look out.

Interestingly, he and blackmamba both have explained in some detail that they have family trees with many different roots and they both say they are “black”. But if I have
understood them correctly, Josh wants to declare that he belongs to a black “race” but blackmamba” simply wants to say, IMWHOIM and part of that is being black.

Would like to see them discuss this with each other – calmly – but blackmamba retains his anonymity so I cannot communicate with him directly as I do with Josh.

Kenneth Prewitt of course has a whole chapter in What Is Your Race devoted to changes that he hopes will be made in the US Census form. Language(s) and country of birth of
parents are two useful ones. When somebody new turns up at the Red Cross I ask them “Vilka språk kan du?” and of course every single one starts in contrast with the former
president of Harvard names at a minimum two and often 4 or more.
Keep trying.
Larry
Logan in August, I hope!

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blackmamba

IL 17 June 2015

Race is biological as in East African origin evolutionary DNA human.

Color is a social construct with a defining and confining colored American historical reality.

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http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15247828

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15247828:15318527

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15247620

2/28/16 8:52 PMRace and Racial Identity Are Social Constructs – NYTimes.com

Page 11 of 16http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs

Larry Lundgren
Linköping, Sweden 25 June 2015

@ Welcome here blackmamba. I admire your ability to say “it” simply. I would agree with you that “color” as used by Americans is used to support social construction.
However, I want to note that Spencer Piston, a political scientist who is experimenting a bit with the relationship between “self-described” skin color and voting behavior seems
to be moving into territory where he would have to use scientifically measured skin color.

As you know from reading my comments, I have learned from some of my Somali born friends that they use color to distinguish Somalis from Africans where for them African
is a person who is “black”. Anyone who opens Tony Morrison’s book and starts to read the first chapter “Sweetness” will learn a few things about the use of color to classify.

We learn a lot about what lurks in the minds and hearts of (American) men (and women) from reading comments – take a look at Josh Hill’s for example.

Those comments teach me how far we have to go.

Ciao
Larry

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aburt

Amherst, MA 17 June 2015

It goes too far to say that race is a social construct. But the significance of race as an identifier is. When I grew in NYC, one knew easily who was Irish, Italian or Jewish. One
even spoke of the “Irish race”, “Jewish race,” and so forth. A marriage across those lines, and also across Protestant-Catholic lines was a “mixed” marriage and cause for remark.
Black too, obviously, and the barriers to crossing that line was stronger on both sides. Those old distinctions have largely lost their significance, even though we still recognize
the same national and religious differences.

So, who makes skin color “significant” today? For one thing, the people in positions of established power are largely non-colored, and power groups always try to preserve their
power by claiming some distinguishing feature as a virtue and ground for entitlement. Time always erodes those claims, as Jews, Irish, and catholics, all once socially
unacceptable in one way or another, have largely found their way into the mainstream.

We make racial difference significant and a tool for bigots simply by trying to keep track, starting with census questionnaires. Why should a mixed heritage person have to
decide if he or she is white or black, (caucasian [from the Caucasus, hah!] or African [another hah!], Asian [pity the bi-continental Turks, and do Syrians really look Asiatic?] or
European, and how far back to go? Let the government set an example, and stop asking people to identify by race.

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waldenlake
Charlotte, NC 17 June 2015

I appreciate your comments and can agree with many of them. However, the following sentiment is not true for all racial groups:

“Time always erodes those claims, as Jews, Irish, and catholics, all once socially unacceptable in one way or another, have largely found their way into the mainstream.”

This phenomenon was historically true for European immigrants because the mainstream definition of American citizenship was based on whiteness. Thus, Jewish, Irish, and
Catholic ‘races’ began to reap the benefits of shared racial affiliation by being considered co-ethnics and co-religionists.

For obvious reasons, this version of the melting pot ideology primarily works today for Hispanics willing to assimilate as fellow white ethnics. The path toward mainstream
assimilation for Asian Americans–whose ethnicities are incredibly diverse, with some having dark skin and most having phenotypical traits that depart from Europeans–will
likely be more difficult.

African Americans, while legally accepted as citizens, were (and are still) viewed as ‘culturally’ incapable of assimilating to white ideals like ‘the Protestant work ethic’. Their
skin color remains a visual emblem of this stereotype, which targets them for economic neglect and disproportionate policing–making their lack of assimilation a self-fulfilling
prophecy.

We need more than ethnicity and the melting pot to bring all social groups together.

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http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15247620:15318449

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15247517

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15247517:15253554

2/28/16 8:52 PMRace and Racial Identity Are Social Constructs – NYTimes.com

Page 12 of 16http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs

Larry Lundgren

Linköping, Sweden 17 June 2015

I have contact with two different worlds as concerns “race thinking”, one the world of American social scientists and medical researchers, the other the world of refugees from
Sub-Saharan Africa whom I get to know at the Red Cross, Swedish medical researchers, and Swedish sociologists.

In that second world – inside Sweden – we live by Professor Ounwuachi-Willig’s first paragraph, a world of endless ethnic variation but no races. (The exception is that the
Swedish nazi-based SD party has representatives who believe in races only one of which can be superior.

In the first world, the world I left in 1996 even researchers who can state a truth as concisely as Ounwuachi-Willig does in the first paragraph cannot let go of race thinking.
Look at the use of race in the rest of this statement.

Neither the USA nor any other country will ever become post-racism but they can become post racial by ending the practice of assigning people to races. Once a person has
stated as O-W does that:”There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks or all whites. Were race “real” in the genetic sense, racial classifications for individuals
would remain constant across boundaries.” then calling African-Americans a “race” is absurd. Ethnicity, fine.

Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
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Nonplussed

California 17 June 2015

But did you read the rest of Professor Ounwuachi-Willig’s essay? For me, this statement stands out:

“In sum, the fact that race is a social construct, defined by markers such as skin color, hair texture, eye shape, ancestry, identity performance and even name, does not mean that
racial classifications are free of consequence or tangible effects.”

Race may not be real in the genetic sense, but it is quite real in its effects, particularly for those classified (whether as a matter of race or ethnicity) as African-American. Social
constructs have power, and wishing them away is less useful than confronting them head on.

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Larry Lundgren
Linköping, Sweden 25 June 2015

@ Nonplussed – Yes indeed, I read the entire statement three times. You reply as if I wrote that I believe that the American practice of assigning people to “races” does not have
power but I did not write a word about that.

However, I must suggest that perhaps you are really writing about “racism”. I often write in comments that racism is forever since people will continue to discriminate against
people that differ from them and will do so for many reasons.

You write that “”race” is “quite real in its effects”. I beg to differ. It is the use of race by racists that results in effects.

If you would like to discuss further my Gmail is at Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com

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Our Road to Hatred

U.S.A. 17 June 2015

In fifty years things don’t have to be even close to where we are now with racial disparity. That’s because although those in the know about race being a social construct are
relatively few. Spend the next fifty years educating our children early on about the discoveries of the Human Genome Project, The Genographic Project, and more; and over

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15248787

http://only-neverinsweden.blogspot.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15248787:15250538

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15248787:15318001

http://only-neverinsweden.blogspot.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15249146

2/28/16 8:52 PMRace and Racial Identity Are Social Constructs – NYTimes.com

Page 13 of 16http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs

time the dinosaurs of bigoted ideas will give way to the scientific information about human equality.

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GEM

TX 17 June 2015

We’ve known for a long time that the biological classifications of race are not valid. However, the current instantiations of affirmative action are based on an implicit biological
definition. We see with the current uproar that a self-proclaimed social construction of ‘race’ was used to manipulate various policies. How will a social construct interact with
such policies?

Asians are currently claiming a negative policy based on their race? Is that a biological categorization?

There are unintended consequences to using social or biological factors in determining identity for policy decisions. Are they thought out?

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William Case

Texas 17 June 2015

Social scientists long held that race is a social construct that has no biological basis, but this orthodoxy has been destroyed by the recent decoding of the human genome.
Humans share the set of genes, but they come packaged in alleles. The frequency in which specific alleles are distributed among ancestral groups produce the differences in
human appearance that we classified as race. Whether these biological differences affect the behavior of human population groups is undetermined. Today, social scientists
reluctant to admit that race is biological, refer to ancestry groups rather than racial groups, but they mean the same thing.

As the author asserts, racial identity can be fluid. The biological characteristics that make up race developed as human population groups evolved in relative isolation from one
another. Now that population groups are no longer isolated, racial distinctions may gradually disappear.

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William Case

Texas 18 June 2015

So far, we only know that genetic factors produce differences in physical appearance between races. It is apparent that people of the same race behave differently. So
stereotyping individuals by their racial characteristics is obviously unsound. The controversy is over whether genetics impact group behavior in a way that creates cultural
differences.

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William Case
Texas 18 June 2015

President Obama has said many times that he identifies himself as black because people perceive him as black, despite his mixed-race heritage. People regard him as black
because he looks black. The physical characteristics, including skin color, that make the president look black are biological, not sociological, traits. The United States has racial
sub-divisions similar to South Africa, but we no longer use them because they are considered derogatory. For example, we refer to President Obama as black or mixed race
rather than mulatto, because words like mulatto or quadroon smack of the plantation.

The “one-drop” rule was a social convention. Race is fluid. A white person with a far-distance black ancestor may have inherited none of the alleles that produce physical
characteristics we identify as black. The same is true of a black person with a far distant white ancestor. Racial genetic differences appeared as human population groups evolved
in continental isolation. Now that population group are no longer isolated, racial differences may gradually disappear,

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casual observer

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15248609

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15248150

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15248150:15258534

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15248150:15259135

2/28/16 8:52 PMRace and Racial Identity Are Social Constructs – NYTimes.com

Page 14 of 16http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs

Los angeles 17 June 2015

Angela Onwuachi-Willig presents the most cogent and sound description of race and what it represents that I have yet read. The irony is that if we would all appreciate the same
things that she describes we would understand that we could rid this country of racism in one generation. Race was an old theory about how the species could be categorized that
has been proven inaccurate in so far as biology is concerned but the social conventions about race have been profoundly determinant of how people are stereotyped and treated
by others according to those stereotypes. Because of how it affects people it has become part of their sense of identity in a social context, solely because it is a determinant of
what they experience living in this country. Yet, by simply appreciating that it is a custom which could and should be rejected it could easily be something that nobody in the
future need worry about.

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Donna
Hanford, CA 17 June 2015

With all due respect to esteemed Professor; Hogwash! This examination of the lying, fantastical tales of Rachel- now reduced to esoteric academic debates, refuses to address
that which must be: Rachel indeed has a mixed “racial” heritage- all European. Yes, “race” is a construct, but based on distinct commonalities in groups.No one for instance
confuses someone with two Asian parents of being Italian/African America or European. I can no more choose to “become” Asian no matter how proficient I am at using Chop-
sticks or co-opt any particular custom or dress of someone with two Korean parents. Rachel did not have Black (descendents of Africa) parents. As the case with millions of
people who are descents of African Slaves- I have a mixed heritage- predominately African American; the Native American, French and Irish- is buried somewhere and came
out in my skin color- but there is no mistake my “majority” is African. I have relatives with siblings ranging from shoe-shine black skin to near Albino.- but the features are
recognizably black. Rachel, concocted a fan-tabulous lie about what she was and her life: South Africa? Hunting for food with bows and arrows? Living in a hut? The
stereotypes are as insulting as her hairdo. She seems to have tried her best to morph herself into Eldridge Cleaver’s wife Kathleen Cleaver (look at their photos). In some cultures
the one drop rule is reversed; one drop white make one white. Rachel doesn’t even have that much “black blood”.

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DW

Philly 17 June 2015

“Rachel indeed has a mixed “racial” heritage- all European.”

Hm, so Native Americans are now European.

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Read More

How Fluid Is Race?
The chatter over Rachel Dolezal’s identity highlights America’s growing racial ambiguity. Read More »

Debaters

Identity Is Your Lived Experience

Heidi W. Durrow, novelist

Why We Should Embrace the Racial Chaos

Kevin Noble Maillard, Syracuse University

Race and Racial Identity Are Social Constructs

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15248186

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15248101

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs#permid=15248101:15254953

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/identity-race-or-otherwise-is-your-lived-experience

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/why-we-should-embrace-the-racial-chaos

2/28/16 8:52 PMRace and Racial Identity Are Social Constructs – NYTimes.com

Page 15 of 16http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs

Angela Onwuachi-Willig, University of Iowa College of Law

Racial Fluidity Complicates the Value of Race

Nancy Leong, University of Denver

Hispanic and Latino Identity Is Changing

Mark Hugo Lopez, Pew Research Center

Being Able to Negotiate Identity is Important

Amanda Kay Erekson, MAVIN

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