I agree with lots of what you said, and I feel you on this. However, if we dismiss issues of race, just because it doesn’t work with our own perceptions and world views, we are basically shutting out those for whom race is a real construct that impacts their lives–and this means both whites and blacks, as I think that racialist thinking is not only detrimental to African Americans, but to whites as well, albeit in a very different and probably less destructive way. Race might be social constructs, but it has incredibly real power within our society–if, as Smooth is suggesting here–we cant talk about it, then we will never be able to get out of it and move beyond it to craft the kind of society we actually want to have, one where skin color really doesn’t matter. Until we are past that, we have to keep talking about these things or it’s not going to get any better.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t talk about class too, because that is a very real thing that does impact people, regardless of skin color and class absolutely matters. But these racial (and to nearly the same extent gender) constructs we live in are very real and we can’t just bury our heads in the sand and pretend they don’t exist because we don’t view the world that way.
