To End Racism, We Must End the Belief in “Race” and the Practice of Assigning “Race”
Only through the abolition of our belief in human “races” and the discontinuation of assigning “races” to humans can we hope to complete the work of antiracism and inaugurate not a post-racial era but a post-racist one. The continued belief in human “races” and the practice of assigning “racial” identities to humans, rendering some of us somewhat human (if human at all) and others fully human, causes all of us, including those who sincerely want to end or ignore racism, to remain within the machinery of racism. To achieve liberation, we need to transform how we think about, talk about, and teach about race/ism, not just across primary and secondary schools but also in universities, in media, government, religious institutions, and across society.
I am an Afrofuturist thinker. I don’t imagine a utopic future. After all, religion, nationality, ethnicity, economic and social class, criminalization, militarization, politics, you name it, would all continue to offer us what we perceive to be justification for writing the “other” off as the inferior enemy, or as subhuman or nonhuman. But I do imagine a future distinctly different and better than today as it pertains to racism, particularly antiblackness and white supremacy. This raises the question: how can we bring such a future to fruition or, more specifically, how can we create a future without race/ism?
As scholars such as Dorothy Roberts and Alain Locke note, “race,” though a fiction, operates as a political system and comes with real-world consequences. As a result, the components of race/ism—the belief in “race” and practice of racialization—are reified. The illusion of “race” and the existence and persistence of race/ism not only continue to materially impact people who get racialized as black (i.e., dehumanized) but also contribute to the persistent effects of antiblack race/ism that remain unaddressed or ineffectively addressed.
People often say they wish for more from our political system—for more unification and less division—but that’s not how American politics work, not in practice anyway. Some level of dysfunction and unproductiveness will be part of any political system, but the perpetuation of our belief in human “races” and our practice of assigning “races” to humans makes otherwise tractable problems intractable, as does trying to jump over problems or ignoring the reality of problems altogether.
It’s not enough to simply say there’s no such thing as “race” and end the point there. We cannot shrug off the reality and impact of antiblack racism with “race-shouldn’t-and-doesn’t-matter” mantras or the misuse of figures like Martin Luther King Jr. We must stem the problem where we start it, too, as opposed to primarily reacting to effects while not identifying and uprooting the causes.
While I contend that “race,” as a proxy for biology or a construction, isn’t real, race/ism—which has real-world causes and effects—is. The reality of race/ism means we must actively and intentionally confront the illusion of “race” and practice of assigning “races” to humans. Both are foundational components of race/ism. We also have to practice translating what presents as “race” into something being communicated about culture, ethnicity, social class, economic class, the causes and effects of race/ism itself, or some combination thereof. The cruel irony is that so long as the belief in human “races” and the practice of racialization continue to be the status quo and so long as we do not imagine, create, and present alternatives to the status quo, the reality of race/ism remains. That is so whether one actively opposes or ignores race/ism or passively allows it to persist.
That we are all human should be clear. Our shared humanity ensures that our minds select, sort, attribute, and essentialize, as Carlos Hoyt argues in his book The Arc of a Bad Idea: Understanding and Transcending Race. More specifically, our minds select things to differentiate, sort them based on select criteria, attribute qualities to them based on surface-level information, and then essentialize them. We then act on this faulty process of “logic” while pointing to our construction (such as racism) as proof of the soundness of our supposed reasoning and our needed action. This process helps explain not only the belief in human “races” and practice of racialization but also the stubborn persistence of racism—that is, how we moved from seeing or presuming differences and sorting based on economic and social power to attributing qualities based on economic and social power and essentializing based on economic and social power. In short, early modern Europeans of higher economic and social status invented the illusion of “race” and practice of assigning “races” to the human species to maintain and reflect the economic and social systems that were on the ground during chattel enslavement, which in turn fed the belief and practice of “race” and racialization in a now centuries-long feedback loop. It was with their belief in human “races” and practice of assigning “races” to humans that the social and economic hierarchies that already existed were at once reflected and maintained in those newly invented so-called racial hierarchies—with “white” at the top and “black” at the bottom and all others similarly beneath “white.”
When discussing my ideas, I am often asked one or more of the following questions: “Does ‘race’ not matter?” “What about Black Lives Matter?” “Do black lives matter?” All individuals who get racialized as black matter. The existence of antiblack racism does not mean that “race” is real or that our belief in human “races” and practice of racialization should persist if we are sincere about ending said racism. What’s really being asked, of course, is this: “What about my color? Does the racism I experience matter?” or “What about the racism you—a black person—experiences? Are you saying that racism doesn’t exist?” The implication here is clear: if you don’t see or accept color (i.e., “race”), then you are ignoring the reality of the racism they’ve experienced or witnessed.
Ultimately, racism—particularly antiblack racism—is the concern. It is what matters—not “race”—yet we maintain the causes and effects of racism when we misdirect our language and efforts away from the roots of racism by adopting the language of its roots and centering that in paradoxical ways.
Think of it this way: we are in a fishbowl. Therefore, we believe that we need to stay in water to breathe, to live. Our entire environment conditions us to just know that we need to stay in the water. We notice that some aspects of the fish tank could be improved for the betterment of all of us and the fish tank itself. Our collective truths keep us in the tank with corresponding ideological worldviews that affirm our beliefs and reinforce the fish tank system. Meanwhile, outer space, not even land, is on the outside of the tank. That is where the most economically and politically powerful people live. In fact, they alternate between inhabiting the fish tank and living in outer space. Unlike most people, they know that we don’t need to live in water to breathe. They also know that there are multiple universes, not just the one with the fish tank in it. There are a multitude of ways of seeing and being, in reality, but our truths restrict and constrict us to the known fish tank, whether we revile or revere it. Part of how racism works is by keeping people in their respective or perceived places of the hierarchy. We all remain in the fish tank as long as we submit to it and fail to demand accountability and correction from our institutions. Ultimately, we can leave the tank and discover that we don’t actually need water to breathe.
The illusion of “race” and presence of the causes and effects of racism are so powerful that no matter where we are born in the world today, racism and our role in it gets attached to us whether we want the attachment or not. We not only inherit it but we also internalize it and attach it to others and remain in its cycle. Although we’ve made efforts to reconstruct racism by trying to reform our belief in human “races” and practice of racialization, we cannot ignore the continued harmful impact or ongoing salience of “race” or our belief in and practice of it. In other words, we must not ignore the continued harmful impact and ongoing salience of antiblack racism. As a result, the machinery of racism persists without us being the wiser or better. Our belief in and practice (i.e., production) of “race” remains the dehumanizing (i.e., antiblack) apparatus across the globe, precisely because it allows for continued social and economic power imbalances. And our use of “race” language to describe culture and ethnicity also serves to maintain the dehumanizing apparatus of race/ism. If we want to work toward a future without racism—if we want to create a post-racist world—we must today commit to the fullness of what I refer to as the togetherness wayfinder.
The core argument behind the togetherness wayfinder is that the undoing of racism requires the undoing of the belief in human “races”—the idea that humans can be divided into different “races”—and the practice of racialization to undo various social and economic power imbalances. Put another way, only by ceasing to maintain “race” ideology, which includes articulations of colorblindness and more explicitly “race”-centered discourse, and its corresponding language can we stop how society upholds racism, sometimes unintentionally. Listen. Rather than center “race,” I contend that we should center race/ism. The express purpose of the togetherness wayfinder is to disrupt and destroy racism. To do so, we must embrace and put into practice certain rules, philosophies, tools, information, and language to end racism, which is a socially constructed system of economic and social oppression that requires the belief in human “races” and the practice of racialization to reinforce various power imbalances.
The illusion of “race” and practice of assigning it to humans serves to maintain—or cause—the continuance of racism. Most individuals tacitly believe that “race” exists independently of racism or racist systems, attitudes, and actions. They presuppose that there are inherent “racial” features of humans and that racism and racist beliefs and actions are biased against these so-called racial features or that antiblack racism has magically already ended, rendering “race” a nonfactor for people who get racialized as black, or that we must ignore “race” to end racism. Thus, by using nonstandard terms and spellings like “race/ism,” I aim to disabuse such notions and emphasize the connection between what we call “race” and what is indicative of the causes and effects of racism. Indeed, the point of this hybrid term is to highlight the deep reciprocal connections between the apparition of “race” and racism and to make clear that the illusion of “race” itself is a symptom—an effect—of racism. Similarly, as you might have noticed, I put the word “race” and associated descriptors like “black” and “white” in scare quotes or modify them with the adjective “so-called” to avoid the unintentional upholding of power imbalances and to signify that I see the illusion of “race” and how racialization manifests in practice as integral parts of “racism.”
The core tenets of the togetherness wayfinder are as follows:
Race/ism (i.e., racism) is a socially constructed system of economic and social oppression that requires the belief in human “races” and the practice of racialization to reinforce various power imbalances.
“Race” is an imaginary component of the socially constructed reality of racism (i.e., race/ism).
Racialization is the process of applying an inescapable economic and social class hierarchy to humans that creates or reinforces power imbalances.
The belief in human “races” and practice of racialization affect people differently. These differences serve to uphold the machinery of racism, acting as obstacles to unification, healing, and reconciliation.
Translation of what one means by “race,” including the presumed absence of “race,” can lead to understanding and bridge-making. The racelessness translator helps people interpret “race” into something being said about culture, ethnicity, social class, economic class, the causes/effects of racism, or some combination thereof.
Race/ism does not exist everywhere in the same way. We can end it.
The primary tool of the wayfinder is the racelessness translator, which allows us to translate that which is perceived or presumed to be “race” or “racial” into more apt and precise language. Specifically, when we talk about “race,” we are really actually talking about one of five other things—culture, ethnicity, social class, economic class, or racism itself—or some combination thereof. By properly translating “race,” we expose the reality of what we really mean. That then lends to increased shared understanding and clarity about racism and other aspects of humanity. It lays bare the reality of racism and enables us to imagine and create a different and far better future. This is not a matter of mere semantics or rhetoric. It is a matter of recognizing human-made systems of oppression and choosing to forge a better path forward for all of us without race/ism.
Part of why we continue to stay within the cycle of race/ism comes down to how some people are programmed to believe that “race” is not a factor or should not be one and others are programmed to believe that “race” is always a factor but that it need not have a negative impact and should be embraced as a positive aspect of society. Others are programmed to fall somewhere between what I just described. We rarely get taught to think about race/ism in ways that effectively invite us to counter and question how we think about it and what we do about it. Typically, we all feel correct and even righteous. We all believe that we think critically about this one topic. In that way, we are all “heterodox” or, at least, on the “right” side of the argument or history.
When we listen to others speak about “race,” we receive that information in ways that, more often than not, help to cement how we think about it. That means that both the rightness conveyed within how any of us think about “race” and the wrongness conveyed within how any of us think about “race” frequently get missed by others and keep us all going around in circles. Because of the design of race/ism in particular, we stay in our respective beliefs about the value of the specific versus the universal, the individual versus the collective, with little recognition of how both ways of seeing come into being from within the machinery of race/ism and both operate to uphold it. That cycle of poor or lack of translation—along with the meshing of binaries—enables the architecture of race/ism to remain largely unchecked and in place. Accurate translation is therefore needed.
If you hear someone talk about “race” through the language of “whiteness” or “blackness,” and you fail to understand that they are really speaking about culture, ethnicity, social class, economic class, racism itself, or some combination thereof, then you are not translating racelessness. One of the greatest benefits of the racelessness translator is that it strengthens our ability to witness and testify to how racism masquerades and gets carried as “race,” which is what makes fighting racism from within by using racial/st ideology so cyclical and even regressive. And it also empowers us to see through each other’s eyes, a vital aspect of solving such gargantuan and persistent problems. For example, I get racialized as black by those who see me from within an antiblack paradigm. I’m fully aware that society insists on racializing me. But how one’s “race” is perceived and self-asserted has not always aligned. In that way, there’s nothing new to see here. I consider myself raceless, whether anyone else acknowledges, likes, or approves this fact. In other words, I see myself as fully human and know the limitations of “racial” language and ideology in describing myself and others.
My identification as raceless stems from my recognition and understanding of what racism is and isn’t. I will not give my power away to racism nor will I define myself from the outside. As I recognize that racism operates through the belief in human “races” and the practice of racialization that creates and strengthens power imbalances, I embrace my agency, reject racial/st categorization, and acknowledge how others racialize me. I encourage others to do the same, no matter how they get presently racialized, while acknowledging, of course, how others racialize them and why. That acknowledgment is central to the togetherness wayfinder. As Toni Morrison told talk-show host Stephen Colbert,
There is no such thing as race. There’s just the human race, scientifically, anthropologically. Racism [emphasis hers] is a construct, a social construct. And it has benefits. . . . So, it has a social function: Racism [emphasis hers]. But race can only be defined as a human being.
What Morrison says here should not be confused with simple clichés like “We are all the same,” and she certainly isn’t saying that we are all treated the same either. Notice the “it” with benefits is “[antiblack] racism.” That is the social construct for Morrison, not “race.” But because we live in a society that privileges the belief in human “races” and the practice of racialization, racism, which includes the constructed power imbalances, masquerades itself as the presupposed reality of “race.” This distinction matters because to undo racism, we must first undo our belief in human “races” and our practice of racialization. And we need tools to effectively and actually do so. The illusion and application of “race” within the human species helps to maintain the causes and effects of race/ism—including the hierarchies. Our belief in it and practice of assigning and inheriting its assignment must finally come to an end.
My racelessness emphasizes and elevates the complexity of who I am, who we all are. I rebuke the idea that any of us is or should be defined by the reality of racism (i.e., “race”) and hope that more people will recognize their fullness and shared humanity by acknowledging their existence outside and separate from racism, too. Moreover, I invite others to acknowledge my humanity outside of racism. As it stands, too many people feel comfortable telling me who and how I am or who and how I should be without regard for how that type of thinking is itself an effect of racist thought. The togetherness wayfinder is the primary way for us all to have our humanity recognized by ourselves and others—and for each of us to be viewed and treated as fully human. We are at a watershed moment. We can choose to forge a path forward for all of us or accept and encourage the persistence of race/ism by doing what we’ve always done: maintaining our belief in human “races” and our practice of racialization by either trying to ignore both via colorblindness or by trying to raise race-consciousness by emphasizing both in ways that naturalize the causes and effects of racism just the same.
Let’s end race/ism together today. Join me.
This essay is excerpted from The Raceless Antiracist: Why Ending Race Is the Future of Antiracism, which is available for purchase at these paid links: Amazon and Bookshop.
Sheena Michele Mason is an assistant professor of English at SUNY Oneonta. She holds a PhD with distinction in English from Howard University and specializes in Africana and American literary studies and philosophy of race. She is the founder of Togetherness Wayfinder, an educational firm, and author of The Raceless Antiracist: Why Ending Race Is the Future of Antiracism. She can be found on X @SheenaMasonPhD.