After viewing Kait's presentation, I decided to completely change my original blog post - even though I find the notion of race always seems to be a tricky/touchy subject. Personally, I feel awkward writing about my opinions on race because I know I am a privileged Caucasian; however, I think this is the first step to forming and voicing my thoughts, and hopefully receiving some feedback. My interest sparked after reading the online blog post about removing the "race" category from the American census. Immediately after reading this, voices went off in my head saying, "that's not possible" and "that will never happen"; however, the more I think about this idea, the more I believe it could be possible - or at least it's not impossible.
Call me naive, but I thought race was not simply a purely socially constructed concept; I honestly thought one's race was directly linked to one's biology. Obviously hybrid/mixed races come about as a result of two parents' different genes, but I had no idea that one's race cannot be seen/determined biologically. From this new information, I do wonder why the "race" category is on the census. If the government is interested in the immigration patterns or the different multicultural (socially constructed) identities with which some citizens identify, then why not rephrase the question as such? There seems to be an unrealistic obsession with dichotomy among, well, almost everything in our world. Following gender with opposite poles of female and male, race also focuses on simply being black or white. Why? Maybe 100 years ago it seemed like a relevant question because of the colonial focus on differentiation, but now, as globalization seems to strive toward democracy and equality, these original dichotomies need to be abandoned.
I think it is important to remember and respect individuals’ cultures, but I do think the next fifty years are going to bring about a whirlwind of needed change in terms of globalization and hybridity. I feel like so much has changed in the last hundred years in terms of equality and equity across a milieu of cultural issues; however, we are in desperate need to update our terminology to reflect these changes.
I have to admit, I totally agree with you in not realizing that race was not something that could be determined through biological means. Upon realizing this, I was completely reminded of Stuart Hall's theory of race as a "floating signifier" in that it is this arbitrary term given to a collective of people that is socially and culturally re-defined and its meaning changes. "Black" now has different connotations than 50 years ago, as an example.
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