5 ms·
As a recent reader of Reich's book "Who We Are and How We Got Here" I concur that he explicitly and forcefully refutes the notion of racial or ethnic categories
by jrd259 8y ago
As a recent reader of Reich's book "Who We Are and How We Got Here" I concur that he explicitly and forcefully refutes the notion of racial or ethnic categories as having any meaning over the lifetime of our species. Simply put, humans have migrated a lot and interbred with whoever. Your ancestry is a "tangled tree" (to borrow Quammen's term https://www.amazon.com/Tangled-Tree-Radical-History-Life/dp/1476776628 https://www.amazon.com/Tangled-Tree-Radical-History-Life/dp/...)
- toasterlovin 8y agoThe problem is that politics doesn't deal with the lifetime of our species; it deals with the recent past, the present, and the near future. When you narrow the timeframe down like that, race and ethnic categories are meaningful, important, and real. You can look at someone and make some pretty good guesses about their life history and where their ancestors came from and what they experienced. I appreciate the sentiment behind the "race isn't real" position, but it's wrong and, in being wrong, it gives a toehold to people who really do care about race for all the wrong reasons. IMO, a much better position is to acknowledge that race is real, but just one part of what makes an individual who they are.