the more accurate way to understand race is as the child of racism. race is a relative socio-political position based on how Europeans co-opted Indigenous peoples into as “phenotypically homogenous” populations. https://twitter.com/rod11/status/1280585198178955265

given that race is the child of racism. racialization is then the active re-production of “race” or race in practice.

let’s ground the understanding of racialization a bit more.

When you interact with someone, you have been taught that there is reliable information about the biology, behavior, history, & the “worth” or “value” based on which group the other person falls into.

racialization is based on a suite of physical characteristics being used to infer a ton of other information about a person, ultimately, so you understand how to interact with them based on their subsequent racialization.

I believe that one of the first steps towards decolonization is changing our understanding of what race/ism is from the perspective of the colonizer to that of the colonized.

& if we teach the history of the colonized masses, then we understand race/ism from a philosophical & ideological understanding of how it “orders” human relations.

the entire foundation of contemporary critical race theory is premised on the decision to believe that white people are telling the truth about what “race” is. it’s time to change that.