by Matthew Reed

Created on: May 31, 2008

No single topic of conversation is more nuanced or complex as the issue of race in the United States. Books and articles have been published in enough quantity regarding racial issues that a dedicated collector could very well assemble an exhaustive, but still lacking, library. Within any conversation of race in the United States are several unspoken assumptions. Analyzing these assumptions in any detail is unfeasible for a modest paper in a community college English class. However, two dominant paradigms can be explored as significant pieces of the race discourse.

On one side, it could be argued, is the point of view that race does not matter because legal discrimination was formally abolished, what can be called the "colorblind law" point of view. Race is only based on skin color, not culture or history, and discrimination only exists when skin color is specifically cited as a reason for a particular action. This is generally the definition used by the Supreme Court and Congress. The other point of view is that race does matter and that more factors than just skin color influence racial perception and discrimination. As Audrey Smedley, professor emerita of Anthropology at Virginia Commonwealth University, writes, "No amount of research into the biophysical or genetic features of individuals or groups will explain the social phenomenon of race" (Smedley 1). In other words, any discussion of race relies on very different views of how to define "race."

How can race be defined? One way of viewing race is that racial differences are cultural constructions that are expressed uniquely for any given culture. In the United States, race is often primarily based on how much pigmentation is contained in a person's skin, along with shape of facial features or curliness of a person's hair. A particular point of conflict, for Caucasians, is that race and skin color are absolute truths. Either a person is "racial" or a person is white. Smedley points out that "race originated asa social invention, not a product of science. Historians have documented when, and to a great extent how, race as an ideology came into our culture and our consciousness" (Smedley 2). Race, as a reflection of skin color, has a birthday.

Scholars are now acknowledging, though, that merely stating "race is a cultural or social construct" is not enough to engage the ongoing social conflicts arising from phenotypical differences among groups. Individuals such as Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, Rush Limbaugh,

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