It has been acknowledged in intellectual circles for some time now that race is a social construction. That is to say, certainly there are certain physical characteristics we associate with certain races, but the manner in which we determine which of these groupings constitutes a specific race is entirely artificial.

For example, many Americans tend to categorize everyone from China, Japan and Korea jointly as “Asian,” but ask any of them, and they’ll likely tell you that all three constitute separate races. Hispanics are often spoken of as though they were of a different race than whites, but according to the U.S. Census, they’re really pretty much the same people. In fact, it’s not so much that Mexicans are “not white” as that whites are “Caucasian (Non-Hispanic).”

People coming from such divergent locations as Africa, the Caribbean and aboriginal Australia are all referred to as though they were of the same race. Looking into history just compounds these inconsistencies further. The decision of what does and does not constitute a race is clearly so haphazardly and inconsistently applied that it can only be a product of human society.

Because of this, I assert that “race,” as we conceive of it today, is nothing more than what we commonly call a “culture,” writ large and made particularly visually apparent. In an intellectual comparison, there should be no qualitative difference between the labels “black” and “Irish”: Both carry with them the idea of certain cultures and histories—as well as stereotypes, unfortunately. But in practical matters, that visual component ends up mattering quite a bit—it makes it easier for us to identify someone as coming out of a certain culture and to apply the appropriate stereotypes.

This is oftentimes completely unintentional, but I believe it is largely the reason why any given Irish person might only have to put up with a few jokes about drunkenness while any given black person can even to this day have his credentials seriously questioned merely because of what he looks like. To paraphrase Henry Louis Gates, Jr., “Of course, we all know that race is a social construct, but that’s not going to help me flag down a cab. ‘No, wait! You don’t understand! We made it all up!’”

Obviously, race continues to be a monumental issue in America, and for a time, the most popular solution seemed to be to pretend that race simply didn’t exist. This resulted in people claiming to be “color-blind” and awkwardly proclaiming phrases such as “Oh, is O.J. Simpson black? I didn’t notice—I don’t see race.” Although this has the noble intention to allow people to be whomever they want to be, the truth is that it just tries to make everybody the same—and more than trying to make everybody the same, in reality, it subtly tries to make everybody white. Many of the people who espouse these ideals are the sort of racists who will most emphatically assert that they are “absolutely not” racists—rather than try to subjugate the “lower races,” they instead must be content with simply trying to imagine them away. Therefore, acknowledgement of any culture rooted in a “race,” like the notion that black literature should be included in the standard canon, are particularly offensive to people such as these, because they are forced to acknowledge that, social construction or not, race does exist.

Such an approach dead-ends us into a world of increasing blandness and rejection of unique cultures. The attempt to make everyone the same will, ultimately, only do race relations harm. Instead of trying to blot out cultural differences, such traditions ought to be honored because we are not all the same. Ignoring the ways in which we might, or might not, look different, Americans all come from different places, different families, different histories. Cultural differences between people of different “races” should be frankly acknowledged, celebrated and learned about. Although too strong of an approach here leads to stereotyping, an assertion of general trends and traditions, from which anyone is free to break and with which anyone is free to join, promotes interracial and thus intercultural understanding—and understanding leads to the humanization which all people so desperately need.

I have never quite understood why “tolerance” is now held up to be among the cardinal virtues we are supposed to espouse in the modern era. “Tolerance” just means “begrudging acceptance.” I can “tolerate” ridiculously hot weather—this doesn’t mean that I want to keep it around. To be sure, tolerance is much better than that which came before – outright hatred. But why should our virtues, the moral goals to which we aspire, stop at the mid-way point? Tolerance is not enough; to progress in this country and this world, we need true celebration of diversity: A black person ought to be able to be just as proud of his blackness as an Irishman could be of his Irishness; moreover, he should be equally proud of the way in which the other attends to his culture. If we do not set our goals at the highest level, then we will have no motive to further ourselves as a nation, as a community and as people.

I am aware that issues of race are oftentimes a touchy subject, and I hope quite sincerely that I have not offended anyone with this article. If that has happened, it was not my goal, and I apologize. However, I feel that race relations in America oftentimes suffer because people are afraid to talk about this understandably complex and emotional issue. What is printed above are just the thoughts of one student as he tries to wade through a very deep issue. I feel that if I can advance the public discourse in any way on this subject, then I have succeeded.