Monday, Nov 7

There was an article in the NYT today about the "racial fault line" and what it means to be born along that line. I found the article in the Arts section next to a picture of Jay-Z and Kanye West performing at a concert in New Jersey. The article, titled "Born Along the Racial Fault Line" introduces Mark Whitaker, who wrote a book called My Long Trip Home: A Family Memoir. In my sociology class, we just spent about two weeks discussing race and issues that come with classifying race, discovering race, etc. and many people in my class were shocked to learn that race is a socially constructed institution - it has no scientific evidence, proof, backing, or anything. We, as a society, have created the idea of race and over time, it has just stuck. I found that really interesting and as we further discussed things like the racial fault line, I became more and more interested in the dynamic between interracial couples, families, etc. The article discusses how a child from a white mother and a black father would identify him or her self. I just found a lot of the points made in the article really neat, especially considering everything I've been learning about in regards to race. It's discouraging to think that we have to identify ourselves by our ethnicity or color when in fact, there is no difference between us (race-wise) biologically. Crazy!