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Race and Ethnicity

For many people, it comes as a surprise that racial categorization schemes were invented by scientists to support worldviews that viewed some groups of people as superior and some as inferior. The patterns of progress and retrenchment in racism, and the fact that throughout history groups move in and out of "white" and "nonwhite" status often pit groups against each other in competition for the benefits of whiteness (access to jobs, college admissions, police protection, etc.). These kinds of institutionalized "divide and conquer" strategies have unfortunately been very effective in ensuring that some groups consistently have more access to power and resources than others. They also undermine efforts for multiracial coalition building.

It is important to note that racial identity is also a great source of strength and connection for people, so while "race" does not exist as a biological characteristic, it has become a real means of both supporting and negating the value of whole groups of people. As people working on racial equity, it is important to look for explanations other than inherent characteristics once explicitly linked to biological "racial" differences and now sometimes talked about more obliquely as racial "cultures" to explain persistent and pervasive differences in outcomes among groups of color.

There are three important concepts:

1. Race is a made-up social construct, and not an actual biological fact: "Scientific studies conclude that race has no biological meaning or significance. The gene for skin color is linked with no other human trait. The genes that count for intelligence, athletic ability, personality type, and even hair and eye color are independent of the gene for skin color."
   

   [FN: Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change, Structural Racism and Community Building (Washington, D.C.: The Aspen Institute, 2004), p.8.]

2. Race designations have changed over time. Some groups that are considered "white" in the United States today were considered "non-white" in previous eras.
3. The way in which racial categorizations are enforced (the shape of racism) has also changed over time. For example, the racial designation of Asian American and Pacific Islander (i.e., white or not white) changed four times in the 19th century. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, as designated groups, have been used by whites at different times in history to compete with African American labor.
   

   [FN: Paul Kivel, Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice (Gabriola Island, British Columbia: New Society Publishers, 2002), p.141.]