Non-American here. I have never witnessed the dynamics of reparation policies. The closest thing we have in Portugal, if it could be so called, is the Jewish L

Non-American here. I have never witnessed the dynamics of reparation policies. The closest thing we have in Portugal, if it could be so called, is the Jewish Law of Return, a bureaucratic shortcut for granting Portuguese nationality to descendants of 15th and 16th century Portuguese Jews that were forced to flee the country, escaping persecution. In Portugal, the concept of race has been recognized on the fly, and only in terms of the Constitutional Rights of citizens in the case of discrimination. This might change in the near future. As such, I follow this subject in American politics and news, since the USA are an obvious case-study. As I see it, the fact that the concept of race is meaningless in anthropological terms, as informative as it can be, is not helpful in fighting prejudice in general or racism in particular. A bit like explaining basic geometry to a flat-earther: in most cases, it is pointless. On the other hand, it seems to me that acknowledging the dynamics of the division of people by racial categories (self-reported or not) is a dead end, and one that might betray its very purpose. At best, this strategy will sustain the social conscience of the issues of race, without eroding the poisonous constructs associated with it. As in other areas of discrimination, like gender, strategies that favour outcome in detriment of opportunity might have some value to it, as this is a kind of social bailout that could just work. In some European countries, positive discrimination works only as a temporary exception. But unlike social concepts like gender, or nationality, whose fundamental aspects are less troublesome (there being, as far as I know, no equivalent of transgenderness in race) or whose arbitrariness (like geography) can be critically questioned in different fora, race has the problem of been deep rooted in physical appearance and prejudice. I don't see how a humanist society can deal in a meaningful way with such a stratification without risking to reinforce racist preconceptions. Am I missing something?