I am often asked to explain how it is at all possible to live a race-less life. “It’s who you are,” some say, pointing to their own social privileges to suggest that I too must accept the social powerlessness of blackness in order to truly understand my life as an American.  “It is who we are,” others say, often angry at my seeming rejection of racial group membership and “Black” history.  Race is unavoidable and impossible to deny.  It is intricately a part of your identity, comparable to that of gender persons have argued. I am certain that my response is indicative of the fact that this will become one of a series of posts on what race is not.

Race is NOT natural.  Race is not a part or the cause of our identity as human beings.  We are not body, mind, spirit and race.  It is not a physical part of us.  It is not biologically traceable, genetically inheritable or physically obvious.   Carolus Linnaeus, author of  Systemae Naturae published in 1735, provided a system of biological classification for plants and animals.  In the tenth edition, published in 1758, Linnaeus suggests four subcategories of homo sapiens: Americanus, Asiaticus, Africanus and Europeanus.  His work would help to illustrate the theory of race.  Other books followed to include, Arthur de Gobineau’s Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853/1855); Rev. Fred Ross’ Slavery Ordained of God (1857); Charles Darwin’s  On The Origin of the Species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life (1859); Sir Francis Galton’s Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into Laws and Consequences (1869); Charles Carroll’s The Negro a Beast or In the Image of God (1900); Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race or The Racial Basis of European History (1916); The Rising Tide of Color against White World- Supremacy (1920); and Is America Safe for Democracy? (1921). For an exhaustive history of race, see Thomas Gossett’s Race: The History of an Idea in America who says of the above- mentioned works, “Behind most of these books was a near- absolute faith in the scientific basis of race as a concept as well as an unshakable belief in white supremacy (viii).”

Race is NOT a measure of our personhood.  Being a member of a specific socially constructed race does not qualify one as a person.  If you do not identify as a colored person, here being black/white/red/yellow/brown/beige, you still exist.  It is not a way of being a person but in fact takes away our sense of individuality and has redefined some as less than or not fully human.   In Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the United States Constitution, the “Three Fifths Compromise” between Northern and Southern states is recorded.  African slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person for the distribution of taxes and the apportionment of members of the United States House of Representatives.  

Race is NOT in our blood.  It was believed that a single drop of “black blood” classified a person as “black” and is known as the “one drop rule.”  It was believed but has been discredited that each race had its own blood type which was interrelated with physical appearance and social behavior.  It was agreed upon in order to increase the African slave population and notable that the rule only applied to persons of African descent. 

Race is NOT biblical, purposed by our Creator or divinely sanctioned.  No scripture found in the Holy Bible lends it’s self to the recording of the creation of “race” or “races”, the subsequent sanction of racism or a divinely inspired racial hierarchy despite attempts to suggest otherwise.  Jeremiah 13.23 is believed by some to be the “first recorded racial slur” against those who would later be socially defined as black (i.e. persons of African descent, specifically Ethiopians).  In the past, the Genesis narrative that begins with a drunken Noah and his three sons had been used to explain the social status of African slaves and to justify American slavery.  There are, however, several contradictory stories in the Talmud, recorded from the second to the sixth century, that include the descendants of Ham being cursed by being black but also a story that says Ham castrated his father in order to prevent the birth of a fourth son and a rival heir.  The fact remains that race, the classification of human beings into groups based on physical characteristics, culture, geographical location, social and economic status, did not exist in Old or New Testament times.  Sacred scripture also does not posit God or Jesus Christ as belonging to one particular “race” or suggest that God or Jesus Christ is a member of a “race.”  The social coloring of a person’s skin was/is not the focus of the biblical narrative and was/is not employed by God to choose, to judge, to forgive or to save.  In fact, the reality of Christ and the rebirth experienced during baptism absolves us from all categories as “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3.27-28).  In light of this truth, I would add that race is NOT unifying.