Kevin Coriolan | News Editor

Everyone is racist.

This is a strong belief that a couple of my friends who studied psychology possess. And really, racism is such a broad and relative concept that they might be right in some sense. For instance, our minds may compulsively stereotype others or we may favor our own race naturally if given the choice of another. I’m not a neurologist, so I’m not for certain. Nor am I a racist!

But I am bi-racial.

I make a conscious effort to treat everyone the same. All men are created equal. Treat others as you would like to be treated. This is social justice. My actions reflect my beliefs in that no race is better than another, but I think I believe this because I am bi-racial.

My race is paradoxically two races: black and white to the casual categorizer. I have light skin which turns red when sunburned in the summer. However, my hair is tied up in cornrows, a hairstyle that reaches back to ancient Africa where the ancestors of blacks are from.

An interesting characteristic of mine is that I have hazel eyes. This is not specific to any one race, because it is produced by the combination of a dominant and recessive gene from the parents. This means that someone with hazel eyes cannot be just one “race.”

A race is attributed to the physical features of a person. So how can I fall into two different categories when I have only one body or one physical being? How can I belong to one race when no race has hazel eyes?

This categorization of people is racism. It may not always harm a person directly, but it may be the cause spurring many racists to act out their prejudice lifestyles. If we didn’t have these categories maybe there wouldn’t be these divisions among people over physical features.

President Obama identifies as black even though he is much like me, having a mom of Caucasian descent and a dad of African descent. He has the option to check the box labeled “other” when he votes, but he doesn’t. I believe this is a political move though. Recalling the enormous percentage of black voters that voted for him to be president, Obama wants to identify with his supporters if that means he labels himself like they do or how society does.

Before and during the civil rights movement, people of mixed races including white would identify as white to be able to enter movie theaters and school events. It was a way to cheat the system because of how people saw others. The lighter the skin, the better.

Previous to all of this, there was an American law saying that persons with DNA shared with a black person would then be considered black themselves. This was called the one-drop rule alluding to the person’s blood.

Racism is truly so much more than we know it to be. It is the categorization of races which happens in everyday life. People make jokes about it. Universities recruit based on it. Academic survey groups use race as a parameter. Race is a huge part of our culture.

Although, I still don’t believe I’m racist. I prefer not to categorize people and only do so because it is how society runs.

There’s a saying that goes “Eyes are the mirror to the soul.” Off of that, I firmly believe that I am not racist as I do not even qualify for one race myself.

Photo by Tyson Domingo