As my first article here, I wrote about why we should stop legitimizing race. I posted that article on Facebook, and had a conversation with a couple of "activists" I mentioned in my first article, who attacked the words "we are one human race." One of the things I realized from this conversation is that I don't see the problems of racism in this country the same way that they do. It's not that I don't acknowledge that those problems exist. In fact, I've made it very clear that I believe they do. I just don't believe in the same solution, because I don't think we believe the same thing is the root of the problem.

I just finished watching Jon Stewart's extended interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates, during which Coates explains his book Between the World And Me, which included a conversation about racism. Coates explained that he didn't think it was productive to comfort his son after his son cried about Michael Brown's death, because in Coates's words, providing that comfort by saying it will be ok will not prepare him for the real world. He also went to say he's not an optimist about things getting better when it comes to racism, but at the same time supported having an optimistic ideal that things will be better. That got me thinking.

I can't predict the future and I won't pretend I can, but from the way I look at history I believe the world will inevitably reach global unity, whether that's in 40 years or 250 years, because over the course of history we have progressively been inching towards that reality, and even more so today than at any other point in history. I don't believe that looking back at our mistakes and enlightening everyone about the horrible parts of history in this country in order to create a conscious of guilt will resolve the problem of racism. That's what the activist I was talking to suggested, and she also correctly explained that it's not that people don't know about their history, but it's the fact they turn away from it in shame. That's specifically why I don't believe it's the solution.

I don't believe that looking back at our past and trying to create a conscious of guilt in this country is the way to confront our racist system, because nobody likes to feel guilty, especially if the conversation can be framed or misinterpreted to make it seem like those privileged by the system are a part of the problem. Nobody likes to be the bad guy. It's a negative experience, and nobody wants that pain. And in response to that pain, people can become hostile to those trying to inflict the pain and the ideas behind their actions, which only does damage to fixing the problem of racism. And yes, those who are the victims of racism feel harsher pain than guilt inflicted on them by the system all the time, but redirecting that pain does not make a right out of that wrong. That's one of many reasons why I believe delegitimizing race is a better option.

One of the problems with a conscious of guilt is that people are self-interested. If they see or know that someone from a different group is being mistreated, they simply don't care as much as if they see someone from their own group being mistreated, or even their entire group being mistreated (whether that's discriminatory policies or a guilt being weighed specifically on their group), simply because they don't want to be mistreated themselves. However, if people don't see each other as belonging to different groups, then redundantly they see each other as the same group, and so they relate to each other. That's just how people work, and that's the goal of delegitimizing race.

Delegitimizing race is not about turning a blind eye to racism. It's just about the opposite. People will say they don't believe in race to avoid conversations about racism, but I don't remotely agree with those people, and in fact I think those people are being idiots and they need to stop. Not believing in race and not seeing racism are mutually exclusive if you have an understanding of how pervasive racism is in our society (which is what I meant in my first article when I mentioned the American obsession with race). Delegitimizing race means looking at our racism dead in the eye and the entire ridiculous structure of defined races that we have come up with to ultimately support institutionalized racism, and saying that structure is full of crap and should not exist. Race does not define anyone, and there is no real meaning to it. It's only about the value of people's lives, and devaluing those lives if they are deemed black, praising value on those lives if they are deemed white, and something in the middle for everyone else.

If delegitimizing race is done right, people stop acting like race is a factor for determining who people are. It's realizing the value of people's lives are not worth more or less just because of what they look like, nor is the value of their voices and perspectives. It's also realizing that people aren't more likely to be a criminal because of what they look like, nor are they more likely to be educated. It's realizing people can apply to this job or move to that neighborhood and it doesn't matter who they are. It's also realizing people can also listen to this music or wear that hairstyle, and it still doesn't matter as long as it's done in good taste. But most importantly, it's realizing that we are all the same, not these separate groups. And that's not an impossible ideal for America, because we have done this here before. The Irish used to be treated almost as horribly as black people in this country. Now in most places in America as far as I know, nobody really cares if you're Irish, except when they celebrate St. Patrick's Day and then it's about fellowship - not exclusion or discrimination. And for those who still think that delegitimizing race sounds a lot like colorblindness, it's not. Colorblindness is denying that you see race including issues of racism – this is something completely different.

Let's take this analogy of delegitimizing race (or color for this example) vs. colorblindness with shirt colors. Bob is wearing a red shirt and Marcus is wearing a blue shirt. Colorblindness is pretending that you can't tell the difference between red and blue... when you obviously can, red is your favorite color, and because of that you give Marcus a harder time than Bob maybe without even realizing it. When you're confronted about giving Marcus a harder time for wearing a blue shirt, you insist that's not the case because you claim you can't see the difference between red and blue. On the other hand, delegitimizing color (in this case) is not factoring in the color of their shirts into who Bob and Marcus are, and not treating them differently because of that. You see the colors, but you realize they're absolutely meaningless, and so you know that Marcus doesn't deserve a harder time just because he has a blue shirt on, because that's just ridiculous. And when you see someone giving Marcus a harder time just for wearing a blue shirt, you recognize it, because you don't recognize the importance of shirt color. That's where I believe society should be when it comes to race.

Going along with this analogy, a police officer obviously shouldn't look for people with blue shirts to pull over, and escalate a situation with one of them over an improper turn signal so that he can arrest that person, and then that person ends up dead in jail 4 days later... ultimately because a police officer was looking for someone with a blue shirt to arrest. That's incredibly insane, and it's just as insane when that decision is made based on race. People with blue shirts obviously should not be given longer prison sentences for drug offenses than people with red shirts, nor should using a variant of a drug more typically used by people with blue shirts consequent a longer sentence than using a variant of that same drug that is more commonly used by people with red shirts. Nor should that be the case when it comes to race.

What if people with blue shirts have historically been given a harder time than people with red shirts in this hypothetical? It doesn't change the fact that shirt color is still trivial. Instead of focusing on guilting people with red shirts for power structures and histories that favor them, why not instead just point out how trivial the color of someone's shirt really is?

Let's say that a society is waking up to the reality that they still discriminate based on shirt color despite reforms in the past to end that discrimination. Some people are trying to fix this problem by reminding everyone that shirt color factors into who you are because of a history of discrimination over shirt color, instead of fixing the actual problem by acknowledging the already proven fact that shirt color really doesn't matter so we should stop acting like it does. It's not a history of shirt color discrimination that's the root of the problem – the root of the problem is that this society created a ridiculous system of societal power and value based on shirt color so that people with red shirts (who are more valuable in this system) see people with blue shirts as fundamentally different and not relatable, which allows for discriminatory practices to continue. If those people with red shirts started seeing people with blue shirts as relatable and no different from themselves, they would become more likely to voice their concerns over shirt color discrimination, because it's no longer this "other" being mistreated.

So how is race any different than shirt color?