Note: this is a transcription of a talk presented on January 16, 2023, (Martin Luther King Day in the United States) in a program of the Center for Global Justice in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
It was 55 years ago that Martin Luther King gave his last speech and today we honor his memory. I will try to live up to his legacy by sharing with you some of his ideas on race and identity.
Let me start with the question "What is a race?" That's a seemingly simple question with significant implications. It is now generally agreed that race is a social construct. It's not a biological fact or an essence that is given by nature. A race is a multitude who share some physical or other characteristic by which they are deemed to be a racialized group. Thus individuals are identified by society as members of a race. Also, individuals may self-identify as having some identifying characteristics in common with others who are thus thought of as being of the same race. This distinction between self-identity and social identity is important, but they often coincide because how society sees you and treats you have a powerful influence on how you see yourself.
A social identification of a race is particularly important because it can define how a group is treated. When a powerful group seeks to assert its dominance over other racialized groups, we find racism. The dominant group asserts its superiority over the other group which is then considered inferior in order to justify its power. Racism is a way to legitimize a power relation that usually has economic benefits.
Once European settlers had stolen land from the indigenous people of North America, they then needed a large labor force to work it and to produce commodities. Black bodies stolen from Africa provided that labor. The distinguishing characteristics of the dominant group became the mark of their inferiority with all of the stereotypes and prejudices that go with that. For example, 400 years ago in the Virginia colony the dominance of the slave owners over their African slaves was justified by identifying Black skins as a mark of an essential inferiority. Thus the Black race was created. At the same time a White race was also created. With this we had the invention of modern racism. It was the unequal power relations that led to racism, not the other way around. Once racialized power relations became embedded in the institutional structure of a society, they became self-perpetuating. Disadvantages experienced by the oppressed group tend to be passed down from generation to generation. Likewise the advantages that accrue to the powerful group also pass from each generation to the next.
Thus we we get White privilege. These benefits may not even be sought, they simply come to members of the privileged group by virtue of their socially-defined race and are taken for granted. As I've pointed out, the social identification of race has a powerful influence on one's self-identity. There's a tendency to identify oneself as a member of the group to which one has been assigned. After all, you share similar life chances and experiences with those of the same race.
It is as a result of the long history of racial oppression in the U.S and their collective struggle against it, that Blacks have developed a strong sense of racial identity. This is particularly remarkable in those cases where an individual does not have the physical characteristics or even the personal experiences of the race with which he or she identifies. Take the case of Kamala Harris. By virtue of skin color she's hardly Black nor did she experience significant racial oppression as far as I know. With an absent Jamaican father and a professional Indian mother who raised her to be Black, she so identifies. This identity was reinforced by early years as a student at the Black Howard University. Thus was her Black self-identity established even though she could have passed for White had she preferred.
Another interesting case is that of Meghan Markle who has been stigmatized by the royal family of the UK as Black even though, to me, she just looks like a beautiful woman with a nice tan. Her Blackness is in their eyes which have racialized her. For her part, she does not seem to self-identify as Black having no particular racial consciousness. Prince Harry, her husband, also doesn't racialize her. He sees her humanity instead. He has renounced the racial contract.
It is indeed possible to see another who has been racialized simply in human terms. This is illustrated in the trial around the murder of George Floyd. While the video evidence of the callous police murder was sufficient to convict Derek Chavin, the way in which the prosecution humanized George Floyd was significant. The jury was able to look past his Black skin and African features and see him as a fellow human being. That was able to overcome the racialization that might have otherwise shaped their understanding of the victim.
Racialization is an "othering" of a group and its members. They are seen in the mind's eye as different, alien, unlike oneself, and thus not fully human. This is what makes it possible to look down on the other, seeing them as inferior and not deserving of the same respect. Curiously, this racialized othering can even happen with groups who are not even physically different. For example, the English considered the Irish as a different race. So too Italians were once considered as a non-White race. Similarly Muslims have also been called a race even though they are believers in a religion who have little else in common. Yes, race is a social construct that often masquerades as a biological fact.
That can be seen in the concept of a White race. What is a White? It is clearly not the color of one's skin which ranges from pink to beige tan and other tones. It is seldom actually White. It is a socially-defined identity which one can either embrace or refuse. Most who do embrace it usually do so without realizing all of the baggage that comes with it. That's why many want to ignore the racism that runs through so much of the history of their country. They think it reflects badly on them. They want to see only the positive parts of the history. But the crimes of White supremacy reflects poorly on them only insofar as they identify themselves as White, as being akin to the evil doers. If they could free themselves from that social identity and adopt a non-racial self-identity as a human, they could free themselves of the baggage of the past.
That is not the same as being freed from White privilege. Those are the benefits the injustice of the past that have been made possible in the present. Indeed, much of what we enjoy today was made possible by what our ancestors did. We are privileged to live in the present moment of historical development, but we are also cursed by that development. The injustices of the past are still with us. Some Whites benefit from those injustices. Do those benefits mean you are a racist? Not necessarily. It is when you deny those benefits to others that you are being racist. On the other hand you can work to extend them to others, you can work to change institutional racism. You then become an anti-racist. For example, you may enjoy living in a nice neighborhood that is all White because the real estate industry prevented non-Whites from living there. You are not racist for living there as long as you as you don't act to preserve segregation. You don't have to give up the privilege, you just have to open it to others so that it is no longer a privilege. If you act open it to non-Whites you become an anti-racist. You become a race traitor-- that is a person actually defined as White who rejects his Whiteness.
The late Charles Miller wrote in his The Racial Contract, "by the unquestionably going along with things, by accepting all the privileges of Whiteness and the concomitant complex complicity in the system of White supremacy, one can be said to have consented to Whiteness. But breaking the contract ultimately means eliciting the appropriate moral condemnation from the race loyalists and White signatories who have not repudiated either." The race traitor pays a price for his betrayal. Treason to Whiteness is loyalty to humanity as the saying goes. But that has benefits far beyond anti-racism's personal costs. It is important to note that in the recent census a significant number of people identified as multi-racial rather than White. They are defecting from Whiteness in the interest of humanity.
As you can see by my t-shirt, I am among those who have done so. Well, privilege is a contentious issue. What is wrong with it is that most of it is a privilege when it ought to be a right available to all. As Peggy McIntosh has pointed out we need a more finely differentiated taxonomy of privilege. For some of these varieties are only what one would want for everyone in a just society. For example, in her popular book, White Fragility, Robin D'Angelo tends to see privileges Whites enjoy as racist because they are not also bestowed on Blacks, rather than seeing them as benefits all are entitled to. The privileges are not racist it is their denial to Blacks. For example, on page 25 she lists the following as granted to Whites: "self-worth, visibility, positive expectations, psychological freedom from the tether of race, freedom of movement, the sense of belonging and a sense of entitlement to all the above." I would argue that all humans are entitled to these benefits, yet she goes on to suggest that they are unearned advantages that White enjoy. It seems to me the problem is not that Whites have unearned advantages, but that Blacks have unearned disadvantages. As Lewis Gordon points out in his new book, Fear of Black Consciousness, the real problem is not the privilege that all are entitled to, but White license--the permission to do harm to Blacks with impunity that no one should be allowed to do toward anyone. License is the mark of White supremacy.
Let me share with you a dialogue I had with a very dear friend. After reading the above she wrote: "I disagree with your points all along. Race is one's identification by the color of our skin. You may argue that race is one's identity created by our social development, but the world doesn't perceive it that way. No matter what group a person may identify with, the other will always see color above all." I responded to that by saying: "I'm not surprised by your reaction, but the color of my skin is about the same as Kamala Harris or Colin Powell, but they are Black in some different ways than their skin color. What is that way?" She replied: "First of all your features are Anglo. Your skin tone will never be like Kamela. Maybe you think that Kamela's skin color is like yours, but no it is not. Your features are Anglo topped with your White culture. There is no comparison with Powell either. Even though they are highly educated, they will always belong to the Black race." To that I responded: "Culture, yes culture is what it is all about, not genetics." To that she replied: "Genetics is the predominant trait. Culture makes you compare yourself to Harrison Powell. However their race is Black." I then said: "Okay, if genetics is predominant, what percentage of Africa blood does it take to make one Black? It used to be one drop. If your great grandfather was Black but all other relatives were of European ancestry are you still Black? Why aren't you predominantly White? Or is Black the default race?" And she replied: "I invite you to look at genetics. I've known Whites who had one drop of Black blood, they had a third generation Black baby, a product of one of their great grandmothers being a Black woman. We cannot tinker with genetics Cliff. What is important here is to accept our bloodlines without making emphasis on culture or other.
So, is race and essentially biological facts or a social construct? With that let me then turn to the question, why racialize? Humans are all of one race--the human race. We are different from dogs and other pets, but in that difference we are all alike, sharing a common humanity. We're all equally human regardless of individual differences. Why then do we distinguish different races among humans? Why other races at all? Race is a social construct that categorizes people in a certain way. It's not an objective reality, it is not essential. So our question is, why do people assign others to a racialized category?
Racialization asserts that others are essentially different from oneself, not just different in appearance or manners or beliefs but essentially different. That fiction means there is not a shared humanity. I or my group is a standard for what it means to be human. The racialized others are thus sub-human. They are inferior thus I am superior. A group that has the economic or political power to impose such ideas can then claim a superior status--essentially superior. Historically, Europeans with white skins had such power. Thus arose White supremacy. That enabled them to justify their domination over racialized others who they regarded as inferior because not fully human. Africans, Orientals, Indigenous people all were not entitled to be treated as equal. Economic inequality could then be justified by racializing other groups who were deemed to be different. It even rationalized the enslavement of Africans.
Interestingly, Whites were not enslaved even when they were indentured servants. As fellow humans they had rights not extended to other races. The dominant group not only racializes other groups and also racializes itself. As Steve Martinot has pointed out in his book, The Machinery of Whiteness, it was through the oppression of Black people that Europeans invented themselves as White. He asks if White people stopped attributing racial differences to others, could they still see themselves as White? Not likely. White and non-Whites are poles in a binary relationship. You cannot have one without the other. Having invented a White race alongside a Black race in the 17th century Virginia colony, social inequality was essential. The consequences are still with us today. It has run through our history and shaped our institutions and our self-concepts ever since. Whites have claimed superiority for themselves and sought to impose inferiority on Blacks in order to maintain the subordinate race and at the same time their own superiority. This can be seen in the frequent occurrence of anti-Black riots that destroyed Black success whenever it could be achieved. This remarkable story is told in Carol Anderson's book, White Rage. The belief in White supremacy was so fragile that it had to be defended at all costs.
Others have not always been racialized however. Race is a modern invention. For example, in 15th century Spain, Jews and Moors were expelled not because they were different races but because they had different religions. If they converted to Christianity then they could remain as citizens of a homogeneous Nation. There was no essential difference that was was biologically rooted. There was just a cultural difference that could be overcome.
It is not only physical characteristics that can become the mark of a race. Today we sometimes find that cultural and religious differences get racialized. For example the Irish and Italians have both been racialized although less so currently. Recently, due to paranoia about Muslim terrorists, believers in Islam have been racialized as a Muslim race. Prejudice against believers in Islam have been called racists. It is as if there is an essential difference between those with different cultures. These artificial dividing lines have to be in in force if they are to be maintained. That was the point of racial segregation. You must separate races in order to maintain their purity. If they intermingle the differences are weakened and, with that ,one's own Whiteness is undermined. It is not just miscegenation that threatens the purity of the race, it is cultural interpenetration.
We have argued that race is a choice, but it is a choice that is often forced on us. White person does not choose to be socially identified as White, he is assigned that identity regardless of how he may think of himself. Similarly, a Black person is assigned a racial identity by Whites. But what the content of that identity consists of is collectively chosen by the community of Blacks in their resistance to White oppression. Again Steve Martinot says, it is Black people who have defined Blackness for themselves as an aspect of resistance, the creation of a re-humanizing social identity, our communal sense of dignity and self-respect. The oppressed can choose the character of their racial identity in a way Whites cannot. One important advantage of a Black self-concept is that it fosters the kind of solidarity needed to resist racist oppression. It is by acting together that effective resistance to racism is possible. Nevertheless, the conditions of life are imposed on the oppressed by the superior race. Poverty, poor housing, and inferior education and health care are all imposed by the oppressor and his institutions. They are hardly chosen, but the oppressed can choose how to respond to them.
So too can Whites. While they benefit from White skin privilege, they can renounce it by acting to change the institutions that oppress others. They thereby become race traitors in that they are acting for a common humanity. They become anti-racists. In a sense they are no longer racializing. To be sure there are likely still aware of differences that have marked race, but they do not see those differences as essential. Others are essentially human like oneself and thus entitled both to those same benefits they have received and those that have been denied to racialized others.
Race is not an objective reality, but a way of seeing others. It is a way of viewing a category of others as essentially different from oneself. Seeing a person as Black is viewing him as different from me and thus not sharing a common humanity. Of course every other is different in many respects, but in otherising him I focus on the difference and fail to see the common humanity. When I racialize the other I put him in a category of those who lack my humanity. That's how race is constructed. How, then, can it be deconstructed? My struggle is against the structural racism that oppresses those who have been socially defined as a race and that benefits those who are socially defined as the privileged group. This requires a political strategy that changes the institutions that bestow disadvantages and benefits. And it's through such political struggles against racism that race is overcome in the sense that one learns a common humanity. Understanding racialization cannot overcome racism, but the struggle against racism can overcome racialization--that it is a fact only because we make it so.
Now let me turn to the question "who gets to be Black?" -- race as a choice. "But you don't look like an Indian, is a common frustration for many of the country's American Indians and Alaska natives. People react with surprise or disbelief when we tell someone that we're from a tribe that is indigenous to the United States." So writes Dana Hedgepeth, a member of the Hiliwa Saponi tribe of North Carolina.
The common misconception is that the indigenous peoples of North America are what is called "red men"--all of one race. But if a race is defined by physical features such as skin color or facial features then they are not all of a distinctive race. In fact they often don't look that different from what is called the White race, as the above quote illustrates. They might more appropriately be called an ethnic group that keeps alive the culture of their ancestors. But, except when they are practicing their culture, they may be indistinguishable from their White peers. Most don't even live on reservations but are urban residents blending in with the rest of society as doctors or lawyers or bus drivers or teachers. They are not identified as indigenous. They are hidden in plain sight.
Is this also the case with other groups? Asians are identifiable physically, but after a few generations of interbreeding with non-asians they become less so. Multi-racial persons lose their racial identifiability except when they retain their ancestral culture. Some would say that as long as a biracial person is 10 Asian, then they are Asian. Even if the other 90 is White that doesn't make them White. At least that's the way it works with Blacks. If a person has one Black ancestor and the last few generations and all the rest are White, why is he still considered Black rather than White even though he may look very White?
It has been in an effort to avoid racial ambiguities of multi-racialism that the U.S historically banned interracial sex. Anti-miscegenation laws sought to prevent biracialism so as to maintain a sharp line between Black and White races. Nevertheless humans are sexual beings and biracial children are born. But rather than allowing them the honor of being White they are classified as Black no matter how White they may look.
Nevertheless, through generations of interbreeding they eventually may be able to pass as White but, if found out, they then are exposed as really Black. This is the situation we see in the Netflix film, Passing. Claire is a very White woman married to a White man who is prejudiced against Blacks and thinks of his wife as White like himself. But she secretly identifies as Black and starts hanging out in Black Harlem with Blacks. Her husband is outraged by this and, in a moment of rage, pushes her out an open window to her death.
There's a lot of ambiguity in this film. Is the husband's rage because he has found out that she is really Black or because she has been hanging out with Blacks? To me, it is never clear whether Claire is a Black woman passing as White to her husband or a White woman passing as Black to her Harlem friends. Either seems possible. Claire certainly looks very White. Only knowing her genealogy would settle the issue, or would it? Suppose we found that most of her ancestors were White but a few were Black, would that settle the issue? Only if we accept the one drop rule. Short of that there's no objective way to identify her true race. The better course is to accept her self-concept as a Black person. This is so even if most or even all of her ancestors were White. In that case, Claire would be a White person passing as Black.
In real life that has been the case with Rachel Dolezal, a self-identified Black woman who became president of the Spokane NAACP and a part-time professor of African studies. She was a prominent civil rights activist and graduate of Howard University even though she has no African-American lineage. Her parents are Caucasian of German and Czech dissent. Her self-identity is strongly Black, but society says she is White and she ended up having to step down from her NAACP leadership position when she was outed by her parents. But, since age five, she had identified with her adopted Black siblings and has felt herself to be Black ever since. Her student years of predominantly Black Howard University for the happiest years in her life because she felt like "I could relax and just be myself." Howard is a school that exists to promote Black values it is definitely an oasis.
So here we have a woman whose Society identifies as White but who self-identifies as Black. I would contend she's not just passing as Black, she really is Black. But now, having been outed as White, she has to live an identity she does not embrace as her own. Blacks no longer accept her as one of them and Whites insists she belongs to their race. So the question then is who gets to be Black? Society has ways of assigning individuals to racialized categories, but one does not need to internalize that as one's own self-concept. Escaping those social impositions is never easy, but it is possible. It is possible to self-identify as Black even when society says you are not. That's what Rachel Dolezal did when she chose to be Black.
It should be pointed out, however, that choosing to be Black is not an anti-racist action. The structure of inequalities, of wealth, power and privilege remains untouched. Such a choice only means you have changed your place within that structure. Choosing to be Black is a kind of private escape from the burden of Whiteness, but it does not make you an anti-racist.
So then, why be White? Social convention may designate a person as White based on skin color. But my question is, why accept this as your own self-concept? What would it mean if you did so? To self-identify as White is to embrace membership in a racialized group. Considering all of the crimes that have been committed in the name of a White race, why would anyone knowingly accept such an assignment? Wouldn't it mean accepting guilt for all those crimes? While there may also be good things done in the name of Whiteness, nevertheless there's still a heavy moral burden. It's better to simply reject such a self-concept.
There are, as we know, some who embrace a White self-identity and all it entails for this legacy of oppression and violence. They do so out of a virulent rejection of other racialized groups, be they Black Asian, indigenous or whatever. This is the extreme racism we see among those who find a sense of social acceptance or value in being part of a like-minded tribe--consider Donald Trump's tribe for example. Then there are those who identify as White but reject much of what has been done in its name. They are the ones who then have to cope with the guilt they have naively accepted. "I'm not responsible for my what my ancestors did," they plead and correctly so. Still, they also have to contend with their own personal characteristics that they see as White. But why see those characteristics as racial? If one is critical of one's arrogance or self-centeredness or other personal characteristics, why racialize them as marks of Whiteness? And there are also Blacks who are arrogant or self-centered. No group has a monopoly on such things, nor does every member of a group have that. Nothing is gained by racializing any moral shortcomings. All humans are imperfect. Similarly, racism is not unique to or universal in any group. If by racism we mean negative attitudes or behavior toward racialized others or institutional practices against them, then we find this in every group. There are also Blacks who do not want to live in a Black neighborhood and oppose policies that favor other Blacks particularly when of a lower social class.
So there are burdens and few benefits that come with an identification with Whiteness. Why then be White at all? Then "what race are you?" you ask. How about being of no race? Why identify with any racial category? Instead simply assert "I used to be a White American but I gave it up in the interests of humanity." You thereby become a race traitork. Of course, society may still want to fit you into one of the racialized categories. You will still be seen as White even though you do not see yourself that way and, with that, you will come to what are called White skin privileges. How can you give those up? In fact, most of those benefits ought to be extended to all persons. Once you recognize that, you can understand that all are entitled to the same benefits and you have an obligation to demand that they be made universal, that is no longer be privileges but become rights.
Finally, we might pair the question why be White? with a question why be Black? Although the two may appear to be similar with similar answers, in fact they're very different. To be White is to be part of an oppressor group. To be Black is to be among the oppressed who have a noble history of struggle against it and draw strength from that history. In this contest, who would you want to win? Which side are you on? There is little moral value in being White, there is considerable moral value in being Black. There's even more in being human.
The upshot of all this is that race is a choice. Society assigns individuals to a racialized category, but you do not have to embrace that in your own self-concept. You can choose to self-identify simply as human. You do not have to identify with any racialized group even though society assigns you to such a group. In a way that frees you from society's impositions If all were to do so, it would be the end of race and of racism. It would be the dawn of a new humanity.
And now some final words on the uses of history. History is the story of our collective past. The past is, of course, filled with too many events to recount. Thus any history is necessarily selective and told from a point of view. It includes what we want to remember and leaves out what we don't want to remember. It is the basis of our collective identity. It tells us of who we are or what we want to be. Note that I have used the plural--we and our. It is the story of a people, a nation, a class, a race, that remembers itself through its story. Sometimes different groups have very different stories they want to tell about the same events. Currently there are contesting histories of the U.S being told by progressives, and Whites would rather forget the ugly history of treatment of Blacks. Blacks have known that history, but it has too long been kept out of view of others. Now, as part of the nation's reckoning with this racism, that history is being recovered. It is commendable that most Whites are not deterred by the discomfort of the knowledge of that history. Those who are are uncomfortable with this recovery uh trying to silence it. Many Whites complain the history of racism makes them feel uncomfortable. They don't seem to realize that living that history made Blacks far more uncomfortable. But why are they uncomfortable learning about what others did long ago? It is because they feel guilty. It is because they identify with the actions of others, thinking all Whites are complicit in what others did. It's strange if you think about it. How can an entire present generation be responsible for what an earlier generation did? It is because we often want to take credit for the good things that our group did. We take pride in the successes of our predecessors, but don't want to accept blame for the evil others have done and so we seek to erase it from our history when we are then confronted with it. We fight back not because it is isn't true but because we want to avoid the threat to the collective memory we cherish.
It is through our history that we know ourselves. It is through the history we construct that we construct an identity. It is equally the case that it is through the identities we construct that we construct our history. That story is designed to support an identity we have chosen. Monuments are a way of remembering a past. Statues celebrate our heroes often with a fictitious story. Confederate statues are a case in point. But when our identities change those monuments can become an inconvenience. Consider the statue of Teddy Roosevelt that, until recently, had stood for 80 years in front of the Museum of Natural History in New York City. For generations, the figure a strong man astride a horse with a Black man walking beside him and an Indian walking on the other side no doubt symbolize how Roosevelt was leading them forward. But as the temper of our times has changed, the racism of this White paternalism has become an embarrassment and it has now been removed to a museum in the remote state of North Dakota--out of sight out of mind. A contested history can be resolved by the removal of its symbols.
But oftentimes a history can give strength to those whose identity is rooted in it. The Black community has constructed an identity against White supremacy in order to survive oppression. An important part of that identity is rooted in the history of a people. A Black person feels himself or herself as the bearer of a responsibility to one's ancestors. Amanda Gorman tells of the courage she found to present her poem at the 2021 inauguration by reciting this mantra: "I am the daughter of Black writers who were descended from Freedom Fighters, who broke their chains and they changed the world. They called me." Her identity is not just individual, it is collective and she draws strength from that.
We tend to embrace a history that serves us in the present. Blacks embrace the story of their people because it gives them a sense of collective purpose. Similarly, Southern White supremacists embrace a history of the Civil War that portrays them as victims of Northern aggression. So who makes history? Who decides what the story of the past will tell? It is the present generation of a group that writes their story in a way that will be useful for its purposes. Thus history is flexible, shaped pragmatically to suit the needs at hand.