Race functions as a naturalized line of difference, not merely skin color

Evidence

People think about race in terms of skin color, and I don’t think that’s really the right way to think about it, though skin color matters. In that period, it mattered profoundly. It mattered as a line of difference inscribed by nature: these are other than us; they don’t belong to “us”; they don’t come out of ourselves. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 1116

Categorization

• DEFINE: Race is redefined as a constructed naturalized boundary of belonging versus skin-color difference.
• XREF: Connects forward to downstream Islamophobia readings on the construction of the ‘Other’ and Orientalist frameworks. — connects to: Race is a social reduction to sheer force, not a natural trait — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 124; Diversity scholarship naturalises plurality and hides how racial distinctions are made — Luke de Noronha, The conviviality of the overpoliced,…, 28; Racialized societies compel even resistance into skin-based codes — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1502 (+4 more)