Race is a Construct

I'm heard that before. I have theorized about it. I've read it. I know it. But still, people look different and some look similar, so race is a convenient identifier. I often use it as a proxy for class and culture, which in my little world in Boston is sometimes accurate and sometimes isn't.

Sumner has fresh innocent eyes. Last year, he asked us who was white and who was black. We asked him what he thought. He told us that he and I were white. One kid in his class was black. Everyone else he knows was "in between". Ramona, Phil, grandparents, friends, teachers, and so on were all "in between", even though I would identify many of these people as white or black or Indian or Japanese or Latino or something else. He saw “in between” people.

The other day he said, "Mom, I think I may be the only white kid in my class."

"Really, why do you say that?"

"Well, I'm not sure about some people. Like Veronica, I just can't tell with her. And Sally. Mom, I just can't tell." (Veronica is bi-racial and Sally is white. Their names have been changed.)

I didn't respond to this. "How do you know you're white?"

"I know that," He said as if I had asked him the most obvious thing, like how he knew he was a boy. He continued, "People have said so."

People have said so, so he's starting to "get it". He is constructing knowledge about who is who and who he is and he is using his world as a mirror to figure it out. Race is one of his identifiers for himself, but not others. Yet. Race is a construct.