I may be white, but I can also an anti-racist. These are just a few of the memories and thoughts that surfaced last August during a four day workshop that I attended with 30 other Unitarian Universalists, including from our congregation Fran Ateto, Sue Taylor and Evelyn Spurgin. We all had memories and actions we had to claim. We all wrestled with associations, history, experiences and words that we weren't always comfortable with. One of the revelations I left that long weekend with was something I'd read before but never fully understood.
Race is an arbitrary and false social construct and distinction.
But there is only one race - the human race. Within the human race there are people of different color, different genders and sexual orientations, people from different nations, but its all the human race. The very idea of there being races was invented during the time of European expansion, colonization and domination - I mean, how much easier to oppress a people when it's believed that they are of a different race, that they are not the same as you. Racism, then, is the result of this deceptive and error-filled means of categorization. Racism is color prejudice and the misuse of institutional power.