Comment on What's the best way to respond to someone who says "transracial is just as valid as transgender"?
EmilyIsTrans@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day agoI don’t really think I can come up with a more concise way of summarizing the idea than anthropologist Audrey Smedley did on the first result of the Google search “race social construct”
Race is a culturally structured systematic definition of a way of looking at perceiving and interpreting reality.
I would recommend you read something like “Feminism and ‘Race’” from Oxford Readings in Feminism or some of bell hooks’ work to understand the idea better.
amino@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
extremely simple question for you, if bell hooks believed race isn’t real then why does she call herself Black? do you seriously believe she means that in a “race doesn’t exist” way? 🤦♀️
EmilyIsTrans@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
You do not need to believe race is a biological reality to acknowledge that the perception of others as you (+ your ancestors) being a member of a race has materially affected your identity
amino@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
so I never said it’s a biological reality, just that it’s real because white supremacy is real. seems like we agree
EmilyIsTrans@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
I agree, it feels like we’ve been arguing over semantics. When I (and I’m assuming the person you originally responded to) say “real”, I don’t mean to claim that it doesn’t have material effects, I mean that it has no biological basis - i.e. it is socially constructed.