I remember being so taken aback the first time I encountered the "trying to be colorblind is a horrible goal, and if you don't get that you're a racist" argument. That was the first first real trickle of unease I felt from the social justice mania.
Sure, the weird 90s thing where it was vaguely frowned upon in certain circles to "notice" that someone was from another racial or ethnic group (to the extent that people would go out of their way to deliberately leave out that characteristic when describing someone else, leading to socially awkward comic silliness when that person eventually materialized and everyone tried to pretend they also didn't notice) was dumb. But this new thing where we're supposed to act like it's the *most important* characteristic of every human being is just a horrifying swing in the other direction, which, I mean, is where we started and didn't we establish that was bad already?
I'm hoping that these swings get slightly less extreme with each wave until we reach some relatively sane equilibrium, but it's hard to tell at this point if that's a thing human brains are fundamentally equipped to do. Although, given my IRL experiences, maybe it's more a question of what actual brains vs online-hot-take brains are equipped to do. It would be nice if we could inject more nuance into these conversations. And maybe even into the census eventually? More options? Less rigidity? Mix & match categories?
I agree that we should strive to de-emphasize race as an important category, and that unfortunately there is a movement in the opposite direction – led, in my view, by privileged people who have a short-term interest in promoting themselves as either a representative of their group or the very best “ally” (e.g. Robin Diangelo).
As a consequence, I suspect we will see an increasing number of white people claiming their 2% sub-Saharan African heritage and mythical Native ancestry. Upper-class white liberals aren’t taking those DNA tests to confirm that they’re white – they’re hoping to find something that allows them to escape an identity that requires them to engage in a bunch of performative deference to people with more oppression points. This, combined with an increase of people with genuine mixed heritage, will increase the number of people who don’t check one neat category on the census, making the data less meaningful over time.
But as long as we have racial differences on important outcomes, it’s going to be necessary to collect this information as best as we can – otherwise we’d lose a lot of information used in research. Self-ID messes you up on some indicators more than others. For example, how someone identifies is relevant for political participation and voting even if their identity otherwise doesn’t really make sense considering their DNA / background.
So, maybe it's important to underline that although the ethnicity box itself doesn't do anything more than counting, it matters when you cross it with other questions, like income, housing quality, degree... Then, with the trends you'd get, better policies can be drawn, targeting 'underprivileged' groups.
I'm from Portugal and we had Census early this year. After some public and specialist debate about the ethnicity question, it wasn't included, although minorities wanted it to be - because only with data is possible to understand some problems (and we have a lot! but there's a 10 more years wait to really know them, i guess)
Have you read Self Portrait in Black and White by Thomas Chatterton Williams? Currently reading it, and it's in the same vein as this post. Essential.
I did a DNA test a few years ago and was very disappointed to get a literal 100% British/Irish result. Maybe I'll try again to be sure. I tan far too easily to be pure Celtic.
The map you linked to, though it looks like the newly discovered missionary routes of the Apostle Paul, proves how ludicrous racialization is. One of Williams' points is that though race is certainly a factor in our lives, it ought not to be, and the only way for it not to be is to stop reifying it.
I'm two and a half years and 24 hours late with this comment, but it is a fact that people have used the concept of "colorblindness" to overlook the results of several hundred years of oppression of and discrimination against black people. Although I'm against people acting like the party guests in Get Out, I'm cautious about encouraging colorblindness.
I would love for your next column to be "How to write funny stuff about politics, especially funny stuff in the John Oliver-esque style that's catnip to people with Arcade Fire playlists."
I’d like to see a “no racial affiliation” or “prefer not to say” option. It is kind of strange to realize how progressives have pushed very hard in this direction for gender (with some good reason I think!) but can’t acknowledge it would make even more sense for race.
I voted for "borders are racist" but only because I don't know what it is and have never heard of it. I think I've heard of Afghanistan somewhere before.
I voted for "The pressures one feels when they're building a news media thing" because I'm curious about the purpose and future direction of this Substack.
Until today, I thought you were writing this newsletter for fun (which is not a reflection of the quality, just the price... plus the current "about" page makes it sound like you started it on a whim when you were drunk. No judgment of course.) So it might be good to clarify what's going on here. :)
Finding Your Roots has become predictable like any police procedural drama. If you're White, your ancestors owned slaves and you have some sub-Saharan African DNA. If you're Black, your ancestors were slaves and you have European DNA. Sure, they throw in the occasional person with a short or non-existent American family history, like Lupita Nyong'o and random Ashkenazi actor, to throw us off the trail, but those like the episodes where you know the guilty person from the get-go and it's all about background stories of the detectives.
I remember being so taken aback the first time I encountered the "trying to be colorblind is a horrible goal, and if you don't get that you're a racist" argument. That was the first first real trickle of unease I felt from the social justice mania.
Sure, the weird 90s thing where it was vaguely frowned upon in certain circles to "notice" that someone was from another racial or ethnic group (to the extent that people would go out of their way to deliberately leave out that characteristic when describing someone else, leading to socially awkward comic silliness when that person eventually materialized and everyone tried to pretend they also didn't notice) was dumb. But this new thing where we're supposed to act like it's the *most important* characteristic of every human being is just a horrifying swing in the other direction, which, I mean, is where we started and didn't we establish that was bad already?
I'm hoping that these swings get slightly less extreme with each wave until we reach some relatively sane equilibrium, but it's hard to tell at this point if that's a thing human brains are fundamentally equipped to do. Although, given my IRL experiences, maybe it's more a question of what actual brains vs online-hot-take brains are equipped to do. It would be nice if we could inject more nuance into these conversations. And maybe even into the census eventually? More options? Less rigidity? Mix & match categories?
I agree that we should strive to de-emphasize race as an important category, and that unfortunately there is a movement in the opposite direction – led, in my view, by privileged people who have a short-term interest in promoting themselves as either a representative of their group or the very best “ally” (e.g. Robin Diangelo).
As a consequence, I suspect we will see an increasing number of white people claiming their 2% sub-Saharan African heritage and mythical Native ancestry. Upper-class white liberals aren’t taking those DNA tests to confirm that they’re white – they’re hoping to find something that allows them to escape an identity that requires them to engage in a bunch of performative deference to people with more oppression points. This, combined with an increase of people with genuine mixed heritage, will increase the number of people who don’t check one neat category on the census, making the data less meaningful over time.
But as long as we have racial differences on important outcomes, it’s going to be necessary to collect this information as best as we can – otherwise we’d lose a lot of information used in research. Self-ID messes you up on some indicators more than others. For example, how someone identifies is relevant for political participation and voting even if their identity otherwise doesn’t really make sense considering their DNA / background.
Hi!
So, maybe it's important to underline that although the ethnicity box itself doesn't do anything more than counting, it matters when you cross it with other questions, like income, housing quality, degree... Then, with the trends you'd get, better policies can be drawn, targeting 'underprivileged' groups.
I'm from Portugal and we had Census early this year. After some public and specialist debate about the ethnicity question, it wasn't included, although minorities wanted it to be - because only with data is possible to understand some problems (and we have a lot! but there's a 10 more years wait to really know them, i guess)
Have you read Self Portrait in Black and White by Thomas Chatterton Williams? Currently reading it, and it's in the same vein as this post. Essential.
I did a DNA test a few years ago and was very disappointed to get a literal 100% British/Irish result. Maybe I'll try again to be sure. I tan far too easily to be pure Celtic.
The map you linked to, though it looks like the newly discovered missionary routes of the Apostle Paul, proves how ludicrous racialization is. One of Williams' points is that though race is certainly a factor in our lives, it ought not to be, and the only way for it not to be is to stop reifying it.
Where did they come up with that one drop of blood thing?
I'm two and a half years and 24 hours late with this comment, but it is a fact that people have used the concept of "colorblindness" to overlook the results of several hundred years of oppression of and discrimination against black people. Although I'm against people acting like the party guests in Get Out, I'm cautious about encouraging colorblindness.
I would love for your next column to be "How to write funny stuff about politics, especially funny stuff in the John Oliver-esque style that's catnip to people with Arcade Fire playlists."
I’d like to see a “no racial affiliation” or “prefer not to say” option. It is kind of strange to realize how progressives have pushed very hard in this direction for gender (with some good reason I think!) but can’t acknowledge it would make even more sense for race.
I voted for "borders are racist" but only because I don't know what it is and have never heard of it. I think I've heard of Afghanistan somewhere before.
I voted for "The pressures one feels when they're building a news media thing" because I'm curious about the purpose and future direction of this Substack.
Until today, I thought you were writing this newsletter for fun (which is not a reflection of the quality, just the price... plus the current "about" page makes it sound like you started it on a whim when you were drunk. No judgment of course.) So it might be good to clarify what's going on here. :)
Finding Your Roots has become predictable like any police procedural drama. If you're White, your ancestors owned slaves and you have some sub-Saharan African DNA. If you're Black, your ancestors were slaves and you have European DNA. Sure, they throw in the occasional person with a short or non-existent American family history, like Lupita Nyong'o and random Ashkenazi actor, to throw us off the trail, but those like the episodes where you know the guilty person from the get-go and it's all about background stories of the detectives.