Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

identity construct #1: race 97
in our social existence; its constructedness notwithstanding, we may not be
able to change these social forms without far-ranging and currently barely
imaginable changes in familiar structures, such as an end to racial inequality
and race-based social segregation.
A related misunderstanding of the import of social construction is that
it is simply a form of labeling or categorizing: to be black is simply to be
labeled or identifi ed according to the rules that govern the practice of racial
categorization. But this is like saying that to be a judge is simply to be a
person whom society labels “judge.” To be a judge is a good deal more;
it involves being accorded authority to engage in certain behavior within
certain institutional structures. Similarly, to be a racialized black person
is not simply to be called “black.” For racialization imposes certain ways
of viewing the person who is called or self-identifi ed as “black”—as having
something fundamental and natural in common with other black people;
as radically other than persons of different races; and as possessing certain
humanly signifi cant characteristics inherent in her racial nature.
If there are no races, it might seem natural to express this truth by saying
that to be black is just to be called “black” by one’s society, or to call
oneself “black.” But, consider the following incident: In 1977 two aspiring
fi refi ghters who were brothers identifi ed themselves as “black” on a civil
service exam. Under an affirmative action plan that admitted black aspirants
with lower scores than whites to fi refi ghter vacancies, the Malone
brothers joined the force. They served for ten years. Then the fi re commissioner
noticed that they had been classifi ed as black. They were promptly
fi red, but appealed, in a case that appeared before the Supreme Judicial
Court of Massachusetts. All available evidence brought before the court led
it to conclude that the Malones were white. Despite their claiming of the
category “black,” they seemed quite clearly to be white. They were members
of the racialized group “white,” despite claiming to be black, just as I
am an American even if I go to the United Kingdom, affect a British accent,
and attempt to pass myself off as British.
In the sense of a racialized group, the Malone brothers were white, not
black; they were not merely identifi ed or categorized as white. Still, racialized
groups are social constructs, just as nations are; they are not natural,
biological entities.
The social construction of race sometimes takes the form, “Biological
races are not real, but social races are,” or “Race is socially but not biologically
real.” If the social reality attributed to “race” involved decisively
discarding the moral and conceptual trappings that attend popular understandings
of it—as the idea of “racialized groups” is meant to do—I would