Ask the Scholars

While it's important to emphasize that race is a kind of illusion, it doesn't mean that the effects of race, regardless of the origins of the notion, haven't actually been very real. It's important to distinguish between race and racism. Racism is not an illusion. Its social consequences are and have been very real. You want to avoid the conclusion that well, if race is not real, then racism is not real and we shouldn't fight it. Simply knowing that race is an illusion isn't actually eno...

Justice Blackmun stated it quite succinctly in one of the famous affirmative action cases: "In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way, and in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently." Ignoring race and racism is not the bridge from the present imperfect to the future perfect world. But unfortunately, people from both ends of the political spectrum are doing just that.

In race jurisprudence, there is a move...

I think the only thing that's illusory about race is the idea that it's fixed biologically. There's no denying that the idea of race has existed as a historical fact and that its particular historical existence has had dramatic impacts on people. The only thing we can agree on about race is what it isn't. And I think that one of our challenges lies in thinking about its role in the future and to engage the public in a debate about what it has been in the past, how people have seen it, wh...