Our identities aren’t fixed, so why fixate on them? - Worthie Springer
“By the time I graduated middle school, I was fluent. I even had dreams and thoughts in English, which made me feel like I was betraying my parents, the entire country of Mexico, and my dead ancestors.”
- You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation. Part 1, Chapter 2 by Julissa Arce
“Is this creature the same person as the one sitting here in Malmö writing? And will the forty-year-old creature who is sitting in Malmö writing on this overcast September day in a room filled with the drone of the traffic outside and the autumn wind howling through the old-fashioned ventilation system be the same as the grey hunched geriatric who in forty years from now might be sitting dribbling and trembling in an old people’s home somewhere in the Swedish woods? Not to mention the corpse that at some point will be laid out on a bench in a morgue? Still known as Karl Ove. And isn’t it actually unbelievable that one simple name encompasses all of this? The foetus in the belly, the infant on the changing table, the forty-year old in front of the computer, the old man in the chair, the corpse on the bench? Wouldn't it be more natural to operate with several names since their identities and self-perceptions are so very different?”
- Karl Ove Knausgaard, Boyhood Island – My Struggle: Book 3 (page 12)
Leon Wieseltier once wrote that "it is easier to believe the world doesn't change than to believe that the world changes slowly." But, in the world and age that we inhabit, it changes faster than was ever thought possible. Further, with the changing of the world, so too comes the changing of identities. What we think of as our current identities, will doubtless be different in 20, 50, or 100 years or so. For some, this fact is something to lament, but I'd argue that this inevitable change is not something to fear, but welcome.
Not all change is good obviously, but that's why we can make corrections. Many things that we may be unhappy about, can change. Change is a sensitive thing, not just for individuals, but groups as well. Many immigrants fear that assimilation will bring with it a loss of self, and belonging. Some of them fear their cultures will be mutilated beyond recognition. However, these fears are misplaced. Generally speaking, both the immigrant and the nation they emigrate to will change for the better. Some changes will be enormous, but c'est la vie. And if we are going to make our multicultural democracies work, we must be prepared for such grand changes.
Race is one such thing that has changed a lot over the years. In the 1920s, there wasn't much conversation being had about mixed-race people. The word Latino wasn't a thing, and Italians were thought of as not “white”. One thousand years ago, the people of the world were not categorised in the racial taxonomy that we all are categorised by now. This thing that we call ‘race’ is a relatively modern construct, and its destruction should be seen as a long-awaited correction.
Many people view the abolition of race, as the abolition of the culture and history of oppressed minorities. But this critique misses a lot about what it means to be human. Everyone knows that identity is not something that is solely in the body - it is the mind, where your desires, ethics and values are stored. My body hasn't changed much at all, but I have changed greatly. Worthie Springer of 10 years ago is a different person, with different likes and interests. Whereas the Worthie of 10 years ago would be spending his days playing Street Fighter and watching The Maury Show. The Worthie Springer that is writing this article spends his days studying Swedish, and Jamacian Creole, and listening to Spanish Drill. Who only knows how the 2030 Worthie will think and spend his days?
This fact is not something you can confine to the individual level only. For example, ‘black culture’ today, is not the same as black culture 100 years ago, or the same as black culture 40 years ago. If you took a random African American from 1905 and brought him to the America of today, he wouldn’t know what to do. If he listened to Dior by Pop Smoke, he’d think the song was demonic. If you gave him a chimichanga, he’d probably look at you askance. If you asked him what yoga was, he’d think that you’re speaking a different language. Our world would be alien to him. Our culture is very different to that of the past. My culture is different from my parents'. My father at my age was not listening to French Drill, or watching soccer. But this is my culture. Just as my culture differs from my father’s, the culture of a group today is different from the culture of 20 years ago.
If race were abolished tomorrow, the culture, the history, and everything else positive associated with black peoples would remain. In fact, there would, indeed, be much to be gained: a more harmonious and inclusive society. This is because we would lose one of the greatest contributors to tribalism ever devised. If race can be made, it can certainly be unmade. In doing so, we would create the change necessary for our diverse, 21st-century democracies to flourish. Only when we abandon race can we achieve our full potential as a species. For it is dangerous to imbue race with meaning and importance if it doesn’t exist in the first place.