Our use of the term 'racialized' is blocking real progress.

We have adopted 'racialized' as a flip word to somehow describe people who are supposedly disadvantaged among the rest of us, because we view them as 'other' and, based on this, give them short shrift in various contexts.

This, I believe, springs from the idea of 'race' being a 'social construct', which concept, I believe, many misunderstand and misuse.

'Race' is real. It is real enough that we can find human remains of recent origin and determine the 'race' of the deceased person. It is real enough that we look profoundly different from each other and mostly can be assigned a 'race' easily enough. It is not a fiction, which many seem to believe is the meaning of 'social construct', as in a paradigm being superimposed on reality, but which does not actually answer to reality. This is not the case with 'race'. But it has given raise to the concept of being 'racialized', because, if 'race isn't real, but is merely a fiction, then being assigned a 'race' is, of course an act against reality and so must have a name, i.e. 'racialization'.

Where race IS a 'social construct' is in its origin! People, who had a common root of ancestry DECIDED to segregate into communities along 'preferential' lines, and to stick with this selective process long enough that we now indeed do have 'races', but that was and is entirely a result of decision and of choice, and we could, in fact, completely undo racial segregation and the existence of 'races' by aggressive mixing of the currently known 'races', as we are indeed all belonging to the same species.

Right now, paradoxically, we are all 'racializing' each other. There is a mighty hypocrisy in the concept itself. If we're all doing it to each other, as we are, then no one is actually being singled out for that particular type of oppression. I am supposedly a 'white' person. However, it is very safe to say that I have been addressed and mentioned as 'white' vastly many more times than I have myself remarked on other people's supposed ancestry or, indeed, 'race', as, to me, it lies far down on the list of characteristics I would use to describe a person. I only do so, if it is directly relevant to the interaction I've had with someone, and, in most cases, it isn't.

I am not claiming that we don't have great social ills related to 'race', and that we won't be poorly served if we simply perpetuate our current understanding and maintain our prevailing practises related to it. I have seen a great number of ugly manifestations of racial prejudice, and believe that this must change for the better. I am equally concerned, however, that we keep our thinking in these matters clear enough to see where he changes actuallly can and must happen. I think we assume way too much that we already know, and I see a need for much more extensive dialogue across racial/cultural divides if we truly want better.

I'm very interested in what others think about this.