- Race is a variable system of social categorization involving variable phenotypic attributes - Race as a categorization system is not necessarily skin color - Race is a matter of life and death because it distributes power and resources - Even if race is not objectively real, "the fact that [perceptions of race] are subjective does not, of course, mean that they do not have social consequences" (Villarreal 2012, cited in Monk 2015).