Let's Talk: Race Identity vs. Racelessness | Part 2 with @#AmericanShare with Brittany King

Like our first conversation (link below), this talk evoked all of the feels. Brittany & I worked to define race, racism, radicalization, and antiracism. We also explained the philosophies of race and identified our philosophical positions. I'm glad this conversation happened. I hope that people will be touched by how we navigated a dialogue that got personal and then became a sticking point for our expressed philosophies. Toward the end, we worked through a moment of miscommunication and misunderstanding. Ultimately, we persisted and came back together with clarity, gratitude, and grace. I argue that promoting and privileging "race ideology" perpetuates racism or what I call "race(ism)." America to more fully reconcile and unite, American society must do away with "racial categories" forever. I developed the Theory of Racelessness, a place where people go to free themselves from race(ism), toward this end. Additionally, my forthcoming book titled "Decolonizing America's Raci(al/st) Imagination: an Examination and Critique of Antiracist Discourse" further explains my philosophies and theory. It shows three specific ways the theory has practical application using African American literary studies as a case study. Brittany believes race ideology might be here to stay, & Americans should challenge implicit bias & strive to judge individuals by their character--a message she amplifies on *American Shade w/ Brittany King* "race isn't the issue; it's *how* we see each other is the question." While we disagree on the skepticism/constructionism aspect, we can see the value of aspiring toward racelessness. The primary difference between a skeptic, like myself, and a partial skeptic/partial constructionist, like Brittany identified, hinges on how we view "race ideology" and "race language." I argue that we mustn't apply language to us that stems from race/racialization. In liberating ourselves from the language, we find ourselves closer to lessening the impact of racism and the goal of elimination. Constructionists (this position is what influences and inspires our conceptual differences) argue that one can be within and maintain, in ways, the same construction it seeks to destroy if eliminativism is the goal, or reconstruct, if not. Thus, I still think that we align more on the objectives even if we disagree fundamentally on the how. And I never got to reply, in the video, about the semantics question. That is not a mere matter of semantics or rhetoric. It has been proven that language informs thought. Thought informs language… and each informs behavior. If it were a question of semantics, I wouldn't be so passionate about educating people on alternative philosophies or at all. Are our positions in contradiction to each other? Is it more complex than that? Watch. Listen. Decide for yourself.