Articles

Below are articles on the invention of race, the racialization process, bias and deracialization to upgrade your knowledge bank. The individuals and platforms featured on this website are not affiliated with Hope and Hardships, and do not endorse it. These educational resources are presented under Fair Use.

Interested in videos? Click here.

Index

01 FEATURED

02 THE MEN WHO INVENTED RACE

03 RACE MYTHOLOGY

04 HOW RACE + RACISM HURT RACIALIZED WHITES

05 RACE + RACIALIZED WHITE WOMEN

06 CHALLENGING THE CONSTRUCT OF WHITENESS

07 THE RAMIFICATIONS OF RACE MYTHOLOGY + IDOLATRY

08 RETHINKING THE CONSTRUCTS OF RACE + RACISM

09 BIAS 101

10 JESUS, INJUSTICE + COMPLICIT SILENCE

11 DERACIALIZATION

01

FEATURED

Why White People Stay Silent On Racism

Excerpt: In the workplace, evidence reveals that women and minorities are often penalized for promoting diversity and equality, whereas white men are more likely to be applauded for it. I was wrong about psychological standing: those of us with power and privilege actually have an easier time getting heard.

  • Faith And Leadership: Progressive White Churches Resist Anti-Racism Too

    Excerpt: Similarly, Robert P. Jones, the founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), demonstrated in his book “White Too Long” that white Christians, even mainline Protestants, consistently hold more racist views than religiously unaffiliated white people. Christians are, without qualification, more racist in their attitudes than those without any commitment of faith.

    Sojourners: What Happens When White Identity Comes Before Christian Faith

    Excerpt: Most church-attending white Christians are not bad Christians. This is because they are not Christian at all. Instead, we propose they are faithful followers of a different religion: the “religion of whiteness.”

    NBC News: Racism Among White Christians Is Higher Than Among The Nonreligious. That's No Coincidence.

    Excerpt: A close read of history reveals that we white Christians have not just been complacent or complicit; rather, as the nation's dominant cultural power, we have constructed and sustained a project of perpetuating white supremacy that has framed the entire American story. The legacy of this unholy union still lives in the DNA of white Christianity today — and not just among white evangelical Protestants in the South, but also among white mainline Protestants in the Midwest and white Catholics in the Northeast.

    The Atlantic: White Christian America Needs A Moral Awakening

    Excerpt: Yet many white Christians, like myself, came of age in churches and communities where we seldom heard anything substantive or serious about the white-supremacist roots of our faith.

    Slate: Why White Liberals Are So Unwilling to Recognize Their Own Racism

    Excerpt: Robin DiAngelo: Well, I was a classic white progressive, which meant I was clueless about racism, which meant I could not answer the question, “What does it mean to be white?” I thought I was not racist and I really didn’t have anything more to learn…Part of being white is that I could be that far in life, be a full professional, educated adult, and never have had my racial role be challenged in general, or by people of color in particular.

    YES!: What White People Fear

    Excerpt: I have been involved in many of those events myself, as a facilitator or a participant, and I have learned from them (typically as much from my failures as successes). The most important lesson I take away is that race dialogues are not enough. As long as we stay confined in a safe world that doesn’t challenge power, we guarantee failure—if our goal really is to change the distribution of that power.

    Robert W. Jensen: Why White People Are Afraid

    Excerpt: A final fear has probably always haunted white people but has become more powerful since the society has formally rejected overt racism: The fear of being seen, and seen-through, by non-white people.

    Vox: White Fear Of Demographic Change Is A Powerful Psychological Force

    Excerpt: One last thing to note: The US Census projections are based on arbitrary ideas of race. None of this matters if the census changes its definition of who it considers to be white. For instance, the 2008 report considered biracial people to be part of the coming “minority majority.” If the census redefines what it means to be “white,” then the possibility of a minority majority may go away. The “threat” is dependent on who you consider part of your team. If the labels change, so may the feelings of threat. “This term ‘majority minority’ has absolutely no meaning,” Richeson says. Unless we let it.

  • The New York Times: 11 A.M. Sunday Is Our Most Segregated Hour

    Excerpt: As racial violence and the white backlash increase in the United States, one question arises sharply: Why doesn’t the church do something about the racial problem? The question is compounded by the Christian church's long involvement in and contribution to the problem, by the current struggle within the church between racists on the one hand and integrationists on the other, by a misunderstanding of the power of the clergy and by a confusing definition of the nature of the church.

  • Public Orthodoxy: Racism: An Orthodox Perspective

    Excerpt: It also points to the reality that although the visible signs of racial segregation are not as evident, or that overtly racist actions are not as socially acceptable, racism is still operative in the complex social matrix in which we are embedded, and which undoubtedly forms and even deforms our judgments and beliefs in ways that we are not aware of.  If that is true, then it requires incessant self-reflection in our struggle to learn how to love or to identify how we may be contributing to this structural inequality, even when we consciously condemn racism. 

02

THE MEN WHO INVENTED RACE

Portugal Confronts Its Slave Trade Past

Excerpt: The Atlantic slave trade started in 1444, when 235 people snatched from the newly-discovered coast of West Africa were put up for sale in Lagos, now a laidback Portuguese beach resort on Europe’s southwestern tip. Chronicler Gomes Eanes de Zurara was on hand. “Children, seeing themselves removed from their parents, ran hastily towards them,” he wrote. “Mothers clasped their children in their arms, and holding them, cast themselves upon the ground, covering them with their bodies, without heeding the blows which they were given.” Over the next four centuries, Portuguese vessels would carry an estimated 5.8 million Africans into slavery. Most went to Brazil — a Portuguese colony until 1822.

Nkyinkyim Installation by Ghanaian artist Kwame Akoto-Bamfo at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.

Image via Human Pictures.

To learn more, visit Equal Justice Initiative / The Legacy Museum.

03

RACE MYTHOLOGY

HuffPost: Race Delusion: Lies That Divide Us

Excerpt: Phenotypic diversity is a fact, but race is a theory. It's what we call a folk-theory. It's a way of trying to explain human diversity by positing that there are a small number of "pure" types (races) of human beings—black, white, etc. According to the folk-theory, everyone is either a member of one of these pure types or a mixture of them. This theory of race is false, for all sorts of reasons…The notion that there are racial essences doesn't have a shred of scientific support. In fact, it's totally incompatible with what science tells us about human variability. It's pure fiction, but it's a fiction that's stubbornly rooted in our ordinary ways of thinking.

04

HOW THE CONSTRUCTS OF WHITENESS + RACISM HURT RACIALIZED WHITES

The Guardian: The Invention Of Whiteness: The Long History Of A Dangerous Idea

Excerpt: If you asked an Englishman in the early part of the 17th century what colour skin he had, he might very well have called it white. But the whiteness of his skin would have suggested no more suitable basis for a collective identity than the roundness of his nose or the baldness of his head. If you asked him to situate himself within the rapidly expanding borders of the known world, he would probably identify himself, first and most naturally, as an Englishman. If that category proved too narrow – if, say, he needed to describe what it was he had in common with the French and the Dutch that he did not share with Ottomans or Africans – he would almost certainly call himself a Christian instead. That religious identity was crucial for the development of the English slave trade – and eventually for the development of racial whiteness.  

05

RACE + RACIALIZED WHITE WOMEN

The Washington Post: Five Myths About Slavery

Excerpt: In “They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South,” historian Stephanie Jones-Rogers shows that white women had a deep economic investment in slavery and exercised extraordinary control over the enslaved people in their households. Many learned this practice from birth, receiving enslaved people as gifts when they were children or even infants. Women bought and sold people at auction, and successfully sued their male family members for control of their laborers. Women supervised plantations and brutally punished their human “property”: One mistress crushed the jaw of 8-year-old Henrietta King under the weight of her rocking chair because Henrietta had taken a piece of candy; the woman who enslaved Harriet Jacobs spit in the kettles and pans to keep her from eating leftover scraps.

06

CHALLENGING THE CONSTRUCT OF WHITENESS

The Guardian: White People Assume Niceness Is The Answer To Racial Inequality. It’s Not.

Excerpt: If racists are intentionally and openly mean, then it follows that nice people cannot be racist. How often will a white person accused of racism gather as evidence to the contrary friends and colleagues to testify to their niceness; the charge cannot be true, the friend cannot be racist, because “he’s a really nice guy” or “she volunteers on the board of a non-profit serving under-privileged youth”. Not meaning to be racist also allows for absolution. If they didn’t mean it, it cannot and should not count. Thus, it becomes essential for white people to quickly and eagerly telegraph their niceness to people of color. 

07

THE RAMIFICATIONS OF RACE MYTHOLOGY + RACE IDOLATRY

The New York Times: Racism Didn’t Kill George Floyd. Anti-Blackness Did.

Excerpt: Anti-blackness covers the fact that society’s hatred of blackness, and also its gratuitous violence against black people, is complicated by its need for our existence. For example, for white people — again, better described as those who have been racialized white — the abject inhumanity of the black reinforces their whiteness, their humanness, their power, and their privilege, whether they’re aware of it or not. Black people are at once despised and also a useful counterpoint for others to measure their humanness against. In other words, while one may experience numerous compounding disadvantages, at least they’re not black. So when we’re trying to understand how a white police officer could calmly and casually channel the weight of his entire body through his knee on a black man’s neck — a man who begged for his life for over eight full minutes until he had no air left with which to plead — we have to understand that there has never been a moment in this country’s history where this kind of treatment has not been the reality for black people.

08

RETHINKING THE CONSTRUCTS OF RACE + RACISM

Dr. Gabor Maté: We Each Have A Nazi In Us. We Need To Understand The Psychological Roots Of Authoritarianism

Excerpt: We each have a Nazi within,” the Auschwitz survivor Edith Eger has written – pointing, in my observation, to a near-universal reality. Many of us harbor the seeds for hatred, rage, fear, narcissistic self-regard and contempt for others that, in their most venomous and extreme forms, are the dominant emotional currents whose confluence can feed the all-destructive torrent we call fascism, given enough provocation or encouragement. All the more reason to understand the psychic sources of such tendencies, whose ground and nature can be expressed in a word: trauma. In the case of fascism, severe trauma.

09

BIAS 101

Smithsonian: The Science of Bias

Excerpt: The brain relies on shortcuts all the time. We use what we’ve learned from our environment to make quick assumptions about whom to trust, how to behave, what to say. But shortcuts can sometimes lead us astray. You can’t always trust your brain.

10

JESUS, INJUSTICE + COMPLICIT SILENCE

Why White People Stay Silent on Racism

Excerpt: For my first few years of teaching, I didn’t bring up questions of race in the classroom because I felt it wasn’t my place to talk about them. I lacked what’s called psychological standing—the sense that it’s legitimate for us to act. Eventually, I learned that just as sexism is not only a "women's issue," racism is not only a "black issue." In social movements, research has shown that when majority groups stay quiet, they inadvertently license the oppression of marginalized groups. In the workplace, evidence reveals that women and minorities are often penalized for promoting diversity and equality, whereas white men are more likely to be applauded for it. I was wrong about psychological standing: those of us with power and privilege actually have an easier time getting heard.

DERACIALIZATION

For more than 20 years, I’ve stated that the constructs of race and racism will not be sustainable; rather, one’s complexion will be the name of the game in America and elsewhere.

 

Previously, I believed I’d see a language upgrade between 2030 A.D. and 2045 A.D.

 

I now suspect that within the next five years, we’ll see a rise in articles mentioning one’s skin tone versus one’s perceived “race” when providing a generic description of a human being. Also, we will see articles increasingly noting one’s constructed societal racialization versus one’s definitive race. Lastly, we will see more articles on deracialization from benevolent and malevolent individuals with their respective agendas.

 

Resources:

Regarding the former point, several years ago, I foresaw New York City-based institutions leading the way in shifting from race-based markers to complexion-based markers to describe a human being.

 

(NYC was the first locale I noticed nonprofits and news stations replaced the word “homeless” with “unhoused.” So, I figured this is where I would most likely witness an institution pivot towards complexion-based language at some point in the twenty-first century.)

 

 In December 2024, the New York Police Department (NYPD) marked the first NYC-based institution I’ve seen use a complexion-based marker versus a race-based marker to describe a gunman.

 

(Watch “Police identify possible motive behind deadly shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO” or read “Suspect charged in UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's murder. Here's what we know.”)

 

I have no idea if the NYPD hired a bias consultant to prepare the public for a language upgrade, or if they were aiming to avoid racializing the suspect as “White” for other reasons.

 

Either way, I believe this is a preview of where we are slowly advancing.

 

Welcome to the future of identity politics in America.

 

 

  • New Lines Magazine: The Trouble With Race And Its Many Shades Of Deceit

    Excerpt: We want to make it clear that we fully endorse the aims of DEI programs. But we object to how they are carried out, for, as noble as these aims are, there is a fatal contradiction at the heart of much of what goes on in them, a contradiction that threatens to undermine the entire enterprise. Although the purpose of anti-racist training is to vanquish racism, most of these initiatives are simultaneously committed to upholding and celebrating race. One can see this quite clearly in the work of Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, well-known voices in the anti-racist movement. Both of them presume that we can oppose racism while leaving the concept of race intact.

  • Columbia Missourian: Kamala Harris Faces A Skin Tone Bias In American Politics

    Excerpt: In the 21st century, as America becomes less white and the multiracial community — formed by interracial unions and immigration — continues to expand, color will be even more significant than race in both public and private interactions. Why? Because a person’s skin color is an irrefutable visual fact that is impossible to hide, whereas race is a constructed, quasi-scientific classification that is often only visible on a government form.

  • The New York Times: Racial Fluidity Complicates the Value We Assign to Race

    Excerpt: Racial fluidity complicates the value we assign to race. The recent rise in interracial marriage has led to more people identifying as two or more races. Racial fluidity allows people who identify as "white and something else" to choose how to maximize the value of their identity. When it's more socially valuable to be white — renting an apartment; interacting with police — they can present themselves as white. In the limited situations when it's more valuable to be nonwhite — applying for a diversity scholarship — they can present themselves as nonwhite.

  • Glenn Harlan Reynolds Substack: The Idiocy Of America's Racial Classification System

    Excerpt: I think we have a disconnect between what’s going on at the grassroots and what’s going on at elite universities, in government, and in large corporations. At the grassroots level, Americans are more tolerant than ever, and mixing socially and romantically in every possible way, rapidly creating a non-racial multi-ethnic American identity. But the elite has created and seeks to defend a whole intellectual, business, and educational infrastructure based on freezing people into classifications created without much thought (or foresight) in the 1970s. I know which side I’m rooting for, but I’m not sure which side will prevail…If I were running the show, I’d eliminate race entirely from medicine in favor of a laser-like focus on genetics, which is much more salient.

  • Change.Org: Improve The 2030 Census Approach To Race Data Collection

    Excerpt: Nearly fifty million people checked the “Some other race” box in the 2020 Census, making “Some other race” the second largest “racial” group after “white.” It’s impossible to know how many of these millions of people might not think of themselves in terms of race at all because the Census form does not include any way to provide that information.