Why Race Doesn’t Exist to Me

Race doesn’t exist — effort does.

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My thought

selfie black dark

A thought:

What if we no longer believed in ‘race’? Perhaps we would be much better off.

For example, in Ancient Greek times, ‘race’ was more tied to your region, country, or home-place. Similar with being Roman– Seneca was a “Spaniard” (from Spain), but still considered himself Roman (and he was considered roman by others, even though certainly ‘morphology’-wise he looked different from other Romans from the Mediterranean region).

What does it mean to be ‘American’?

What is great about being American:

It ain’t tied to a skin pigment.

To me, being American is more of an ethos. To be an American is a combination of risk-loving, entrepreneurial, freedom-loving, free-minded thinking, open-mindedness, diversity, multi-cultural, democracy-first (even though there are downsides), freedom of speech, and generally-egalitarian values.

I am American

I’m ethnically Korean, yet I was born in America. I consider myself FIRST an American, then perhaps second Korean. Ultimately I see myself as ‘Korean-American’ (because I still have Korean-Confucian ideals), but beyond that– I consider myself an American.

I am an Eagle Scout, I was born here, I was raised here on Costco Hot Pockets and Hot Dogs, consumed American media, and consider myself American.

Obviously I recognize that morphology-wise, I am Asian and look “East-Asian”. But I don’t really care. I prefer to just think of myself as “ERIC” and to not let race define me. Even being American — I see myself as a ‘citizen of Planet Earth of the Human Race’ more than being American.

Where the Race notion holds us back

Selfie

An example for being Asian-American:

Generally Asian-American men are stereotyped as being meek, quiet, small, weak, effeminate, etc.

Thus whenever I deadlift over 400 pounds at the gym, everyone is so surprised “how strong” I am. Why? Because I am an Asian-American guy; and Asian guys aren’t supposed to be “strong”.

Taken further, the bias in America is that being Asian you are generally weaker in terms of ‘genetic potential’. That might or might not be true; but I prefer to ignore genetics. Why? It is better to disbelieve genetics and give it your 1000% effort to become stronger, than to believe in genetics (and be ‘right’) and hold back your potential.

Anti-racism

Ultimately when we try to quantify certain things like “IQ”, what are we trying to do?

We are enacting neo-Racism.

For example, if we do studies to test a certain IQ in a certain population, what does it tell us? Nothing. That they are good at taking nerdy-tests. There will never be a test, study, or quantitative (numbers-based and score-based) approach which can measure intelligence.

And how can we even define intelligence? For whom? For what society — present society, or future society? People who we might consider ‘unintelligent’ today might be the people we need for the future. What types of intelligence exist? And what kind of intelligence do we favor in our society? These are answers for philosophers.

But for me, all forms of intelligence are equally legitimate– and ain’t nobody “smarter” or “more intelligent” than others. And certainly race has nothing to do with intelligence (however we want to define ‘intelligence’).

Hierarchy, not race

Certainly in humanity, there will always be some form of hierarchy, and I think there should be.

But hierarchy based on merit, not race, sex, skin tone, region, whatever.

And how do we measure merit? Merit based on:

  1. Effort
  2. Hustle
  3. Determination
  4. Singleness of vision
  5. Audacity
  6. Strength
  7. Tenaciousness

Once again:

Merit, effort, and hustle — NOT RACE!

Race doesn’t exist, effort does.

ERIC

Philosophy by KIM

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