Social construction and racial identities
pp. 123-147
in: , Philosophy of race, Berlin, Springer, 2018Abstract
Race was socially constructed through colonialism and global development affects poor nonwhite populations. Within US society, technologies of race and racism and individual racial identities, including mixed race, reproduce racial divisions and status. When segregation and marriage laws kept racial divisions in place through state force, custom now takes their place. Both monoracial identities and mixed ones, require constant internal dialogue, with or without external group support. Pragmatic and accommodationist approaches to racism allow nonwhites to live within racist systems by avoiding conflict. Politicized racial identities are forms of resistance. Racial eliminativism, based on the biological emptiness of race, is an ineffective social project and some scholars seek to retain minimal biological race.