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Race Isn’t Going Anywhere
And we can’t stop talking about it
Is race a scientific fact or a social construct? It’s a question America has batted around for centuries. As Medium user Leigh Green writes, “We like to think of race and racism as relics of the past. Like growing pains. We were a younger society/culture/world before. We feel different now; better, and more mature. We assume that because we feel this way it’s the reality. That is just not the case.” She points out that the process of racialization — the process of ascribing ethnic or racial identities to a relationship, social practice, or group that did not identify itself as such — is alive and well in our society. “Race was created by people with power and resources as a way of maintaining that power and those resources.”
Green offers a history lesson by way of context:
Since the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo in 1846 there have been many efforts, facilitated by both the Mexican government and interest groups within the United States, to cement Mexican as a white identity — particularly in regards to the census. This was based on the awareness that the only fully protected citizens of the United States were the white ones. Additionally, until the 1970s Jim Crow was in full swing. If there was an option not to be labeled black at that moment in history the vast majority of us…
