REGARDING RACE

July 2000
		A New York Times series is examining the state of race relations in everyday America. Where do U.S. race relations stand in the year 2000? Are there racial issues that need further discussion? Times reporter Dana Canedy, former Times writer and George Mason University professor Roger Wilkins and Dartmouth College professor Mary Childers take your questions.

Forum introduction What's behind racial separation? Why are native peoples left out of conversations like this? Don't these discussions reinforce racial separation? Will casual racism ever decline? Why do discussions of racism focus on white people?     July 11, 2000: Five experts discuss a New York Times series examining race in everyday America. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of race relations and the media.     "How Race is Lived in America" The New York Times Learning Network The New York Times

Julia Hammett of Reno, Nevada asks: Anthropologists urge people to remember that the "race" concept is a cultural historical construct, not a biological fact. Although the concept was never valid scientifically, it is even less useful as a social construct in this age of global interaction. Does this very discussion not reaffirm the legitimacy of the "race" concept? Is it not "racist" to even have this discussion? Why not use this and every opportunity to educate people and reinforce the inappropriateness of this historically ugly term that has been the source of so much evil?   Dana Canedy responds: Whatever you call it, I don't think anyone would argue that a painful, enduring divide exists between the races. To ignore it because of semantics seems irresponsible and certainly does not move any of us closer to a better understanding of each other.   Mary Childers responds: An extended discussion of race should include insistence on its biological insignificance and the history of its social construction. More of us need to be aware that when we talk about race unselfconsciously we may inadvertently perpetuate the idea that it exists independently of our cultural and historical creation of distinctions among human beings. The terrible truth of human history is that we create distinctions to advantage some groups at the expense of others and to justify dehumanizing some people for the benefit of others. Even when we routinely refer to people as "black" and "white" we can prompt ourselves to assume that means the people referred to are completely different. Language can manipulate our perspective on reality. That said, insisting on always bringing up this point does not make sense to me. As long as darker skin reduces people's chances of getting jobs and desirable apartments and correlates disproportionately with poverty, we have to be able to address the experiential reality of race. Sophisticated analysis is crucial in many contexts, minimally relevant or distracting in others. The book "Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s" by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, might be helpful to readers who are curious about what is meant by the notion that race is a social construction.   Roger Wilkins responds: Your suggestion is really lovely, but I don't think it can work very effectively in the struggle for justice in this country. In this case, history trumps science. William Faulkner once observed: "The past is never dead. In fact, it's not even past." Our cultural heritage -- accumulated over almost four centuries on this continent -- makes it virtually impossible for the vast majority of us not to see "race" when we look into a stranger's face. Because of advances in the twentieth century, I think that initial recognition carries substantially less freight than it did in 1900, but it is still potent. When a middle class black person walks into a newsroom, for example, race is noted and consequential adjustments are made. With poor blacks, it is even more telling. They are poor because they have been more damaged than the rest of us by our racism. If those of us who are decent can't resort to the historical racial argument about who they are and about why they are as they are and how much it will take to rectify the damage done (I'd make the same argument about indigenous people) then our struggle for compensatory justice is substantially weakened. Because race has mattered so much in our history and has been so powerful in configuring our psyches, our systems of rewards and punishments and our politics, we still need it to fix ourselves and our country. I hope that someday we'll reach the point that you sketch out, but I'm convinced that we're not near there yet.