The Concept of "Race" is not Your Friend

This discussion is reponsive to an article posted at Facebook, which says:

"Attitudes, particularly racial prejudice, which serves a number of psychological and material functions, often have a basic core that is resistant to change"

Part of that "basic core that is resistant to change" is the belief that "race" exists at all. The Human Genome Project has concluded that there is no basis in human genetic studies for the belief in "races", and yet we continue to use the word ubiquitously, as steadfast in our resistance to changing our language as we once were to integrating the US Armed Forces and mixing "black blood" with "white's blood" in blood banks.

The science will eventually overcome the color aroused ideation because even human beings are not so obtuse as to continue to insist that "race" exists when every scientific discovery proves that it doesn't. What exists is skin color, and everything else, as a matter of biology, is has less value than air in a tube of toothpaste.

"What are the key psychological factors that shape racial attitudes, and how ingrained are those attitudes?"

The continued use of the term "racial" is an example of an ingrained pattern that perpetuates color-based falsehoods.

Using the term "overt racism" is an example of "overt racism". I can only be discriminated against on the basis of my "race" if race exists in the first place. When I say I am the victim of "racism" I am asserting that I am of a different race and that is why people are discriminating against me. In fact, I am perpetuating the the ideation that forms the basis of the discrimination. Just because OTHERS believe I that races exist and mine is different doesn't mean it's true.

They are not discriminating against me because of my race. They are discriminating against me on the basis of my color and because they believe that my color is a sign of a different race. Whenever I use the word "race" I aid and abet the underpinnings of their color-based ideology.

In summary, the words "race" and "racism" and "racial" and "racist" are not our friends. They serve only to perpetuate the belief that race exists in the first place and to reinforce the belief that people with a differerent skin color are a fundamentally different and alien subspecies. I can't see how conceding that we are part of a fundamentally different and alien subspecies will help us to reduce discrimination based on skin color.

Conceding that "races" exist is a concession that people are fundamentally biologically different based on skin color, and that is a belief that is at the heart of our problem, whether we are Black or white.