RACE FAKE POSTSCRIPT: Rob Dakin writes, “If almost everybody acted, almost all the time, AS IF there could be a dangerous, mankilling, rogue unicorn around the next corner, then the mere fact that unicorns are ‘fake’ would be almost (but not quite) irrelevant. So, race does exist. It’s just that once you try to define what any given person’s race IS, it becomes like trying to catch his shadow…”

I reply, “Argh! I try for a catchy post title, and sow confusion in my wake! What you’ve just said is what I was trying to say, thanks. There’s a feminist slogan that goes something like, I think, ‘Gender is real but not true,’ i.e. people’s gendered expectations of the world have real effects, but that doesn’t mean humans are inherently gendered. Obviously I think that’s false w/r/t gender, but it’s a good way of thinking about race.”

What I should have added: Also, it’s obviously pretty important that there aren’t any carnivorous unicorns. Similarly, the ways in which people fail to fit our racial boxes–the ways in which race is untrue/fake–are at least as important as the real-life effects that our racial expectations have on those around us.