Barack, Beyoncé and Baloney: the Absurdity of Race in America Today

Obama's Inauguration a Proud Day for All of US

President Obama’s inauguration was a proud day for black people in our country.  The first black President of the United States was sworn in for a second term, and a black singer gave an inspiring rendition of our national anthem.  It was a proud day, too, for the rest of us because of the progress which our country has made in our long journey toward racial equality.  One small but telling measure of the distance we have come is that in 1940, Marian Anderson, a world-famous black singer,  had to give a concert at the Lincoln Memorial because the Daughters of the American Revolution would not allow her to perform in the hall that they owned, which was then the only large concert hall in Washington.

We Have Not Yet Grasped the Absurdity of Race in the U.S.

Yes, we have come a long way, but we have not really grasped the full absurdity of racial discrimination in our country.  Think for a moment of Barack and Beyoncé.  Think how they really look.  Just how black are they?  We see them as black only because we have inherited a system of classification that says that anyone who has even the smallest amount of black blood in his veins must be thought of as black.  Under this system of classification, the only people who can claim to be white are those who can claim to be pure white, but if we all knew the truth, who among us could make such a claim?

European Settlers Were of Mixed Race

All of the European settlers in North America came from countries with racially mixed populations.  Every country in Europe had been subject to multiple invasions over hundreds of years including invasions by Asiatic tribes like the Mongols and the Huns. We all know what the behavior of invading armies is like, and it seems unlikely that there are any Europeans with no Asian blood.  In addition, Europeans had African slaves in small numbers for hundreds of years before  and after they were imported into North America. We also know that there are families of African-American ancestry in southern cities and northern ones who have been “passing” for white for several generations, and of course members of those families have married “white” people.  Their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren form part of the white population.

African Americans Were Exploited Sexually

The situation is not different for black people.  We know that when they were slaves, black women were exploited sexually by their owners and by the sons of their owners.  We know too that in general, upper-class men of every race are very generous with their genetic material.  So, it is not likely that there are any pure Africans in the United States today.

Race Does Not Explain Anything

The absurdity does not stop there. The concept of race in its modern sense was developed in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, and it was used by biologists and social scientists to explain differences in culture and in behavior.  However, more careful research since then has shown that race as a biological construct cannot explain anything in the domains of culture or behavior.  There are no cultural or behavioral differences between groups of people that can be explained by biological differences between them.

Racial Differences Explained by Discrimination

What then does race explain?  Clearly there are differences among the races in the United States in levels of wealth, social position and education. They are explained not by race as such but by racial discrimination.  Black people are on average poorer than white people, not because they are racially inferior but because they have been subject to discrimination.

Today, the census recognizes that race exists only in our minds by allowing people to choose “mixed race” as a racial identity.  Today, in the census, I can be whatever race I choose to be including “mixed”. Of course, we know that in a biological sense, we are all mixed, but each of us can either acknowledge that or choose one of the supposedly pure racial categories.

Racial Categories in the U. S. Are Baloney

So here we are in the United States with a legacy of racial discrimination even though we have practically no people of pure race.  Our racial discrimination is real but the categories on which it is based are not.  To see how true this is, we have only to look at the images of Barack and Beyoncé on TV.  They are black only by social convention, but the reality of that convention is so strong that we can legitimately feel proud to see them there, and we can hope that their presence there points to a brighter and more equal future.  We will take a major step toward that future by recognizing that the races don’t really exist except in our minds.  They are baloney.