> Had they stuck to their principles—that race discrimination is wrong, that people should be judged as individuals and not as racial groups—we would have far fewer problems on campuses today.
The problem is, the whole issue is inherently paradoxical. If you assume race is a social construct, it makes no sense to discriminate against any skin color, whether it is a majority in a given country or not. But if you decide to implement certain race-related policies, you automatically validate the concept of race. Still, for some reason we have decided to hold both those mutually-exclusive positions.
Let us suppose race is a social construct. Let us further suppose that in the US, large groups of whites have discriminated against blacks for no reason other than race. So for many years, they were disadvantaged in hiring, buying desirable property, etc.
Now fast forward 100+ years of such treatment. I would bet that on average, black people would earn less, own less desirable property, etc, and that a portion of that is due to discrimination. I would also bet that a certain view of helplessness would grow. Why even try? My daddy went to college and couldn’t get a job anyway. Stories passed down like that would be very powerful.
I’m not saying the solution is one thing or another. I’m saying people most definitely have treated each other based on visual differences.
Take religion. Let us suppose you are a group of 200 from England who converted to Judaism and moved to Germany in 1930. The religion for these people is a pure social construct. You think they wouldn’t be put in the ghetto? Good luck.
A fair point. However, there are many problematic issues with this approach. For example, if you follow with this plan, when will you stop? I can image than in 100 years, people who are non-white are still given preferential treatment for historical reasons. Who will dare to take it away from them and what arguments will you use?
Instead of following in this direction, where financial issues are involved, wouldn't it make more sense to discriminate based on income, not skin color? And in a way that actually helps both the person and the society, i.e. not "he got mediocre grades but let's push him into university before whites with excellent grades" but "the guy has excellent grades but can't afford university, let's support him financially without looking at the color of his skin".
By the way, in theory, races should disappear sooner or later by people having mixed relationships. But in practice, I noticed for some reasons this is not happening at a rate we would hope it happens. There are many social reasons, some are quite strong and obvious. Some less so, like the issue of kids feeling like they don't belong to neither community, and treated in this way by the rest. I remember reading an interview with Vin Diesel saying it was a problem for him when he was younger. As stupid as it seems, for some reason people prefer to "keep with their kind" and trying to pretend race is just a social construct only obscures the issue.
Because race is a social construct it will never disappear because of some real world action like mixed relationships. If it goes away or becomes more central to our lives then it is today it will be because of political choices by people.
The problem is, the whole issue is inherently paradoxical. If you assume race is a social construct, it makes no sense to discriminate against any skin color, whether it is a majority in a given country or not. But if you decide to implement certain race-related policies, you automatically validate the concept of race. Still, for some reason we have decided to hold both those mutually-exclusive positions.