wed 16 may 2012 20:43:19 — witte de withstraat
'race is insubstantial'
was just incited to say on fb:
i think race is a kind of self-perpetuating 'reality'. it lasts as long as we keep caring about it. the potential for race, and of racism, exists whenever we believe any useful information about a person can come from knowing their origin. i don't know why we can't help believing in that. maybe our crazy brain evolved to look for patterns, so we pair (for example) an observed behavior with an accent, an appearance, a purported nationality. what i do know is that it's anti-reasonable. race and nationality are mainly insubstantial, except in our minds.