The Togetherness Wayfinder

1 Race is a social construct

"Race" is a human invention from the 1600s, manufactured to justify slavery — not a discovery about humanity.

The concept of race didn't exist before the 16th century. European colonizers and the transatlantic slave trade required a story that made enslaved Africans "less than human" to override the Christian conviction that slavery dehumanizes. Pseudoscientific theories of biological inferiority were invented to supply that story, and "race" has functioned that way ever since.

“Race/ism is a socially constructed system of economic and social oppression that often requires the belief in "race" and the practice of racialization to reinforce various power imbalances.”
Mason, The Raceless Antiracist, quoted in racelessmovement essay (May 2025)

Example

Pre-1600s history shows tribalism — An Lushan Rebellion, Emishi Wars, Egyptian enslavement of Hebrews — but not "race" as we know it. Race is tribalism's most recent and most codified mask.

2 Race is imaginary

Race has no biological basis. The genetics do not support it.

The Human Genome Project (completed 2003) confirmed humans are 99.9% identical at the DNA level. The 0.1% of variation does not align with "racial" lines. There is more genetic variation within so-called racial groups than between them. Race as a biological category is not real.

“The illusion of "race" and practice of assigning it to humans serves to maintain — or cause — the continuance of racism.”
Mason, The Raceless Antiracist, quoted in racelessmovement essay (May 2025)

Example

Race-based clinical algorithms (e.g., eGFR for kidney function) assumed patients racialized as "black" had higher muscle mass, delaying critical care and widening health disparities (Vyas et al., 2020). The fiction has measurable medical cost.

3 Racialization categorizes

Racialization sorts people into invented "racial" buckets, unnecessarily and inaccurately, then treats those buckets as if they describe something real.

Racialization is the act of assigning people to racial categories — and once assigned, the categories become the lens through which they're judged. The assumption that someone's appearance tells you about their culture, taste, or capacity is racialization in practice, and it harms both the racialized and the one doing the racializing.

“in every context, racialization arises out of the interaction of groups of humans, whereby one group of humans assigns a "racial" identity to another group of humans for the purpose of dominating, marginalizing or excluding.”
Mason, The Raceless Antiracist, quoted in racelessmovement essay (May 2025)

Example

Personal: An acquaintance once saw me wearing cowboy boots during a church work project and commented, "getting back to your roots huh!" — assuming, from my appearance, that I must be a country-music-loving cowboy at heart. I grew up in urban Las Vegas. It wasn't malicious. But it made me "other" based on a category I never chose.

Historical: The Yamato Japanese categorized the Emishi as "barbarians" based on distinct language, clothing, and physical features — and used that categorization to justify warfare and forced assimilation. The categories were the prerequisite for the violence.

4 Belief in race upholds racism

Race and racism are inseparable. Belief in the category produces the practice.

Racism is not a misuse of race — racism is what the concept of race does. Every act of racism requires first believing the category is real. End the belief and you starve the practice at the root. "Race" itself is racism.

“…this is not semantics or rhetoric. It is a matter of recognizing human-made systems of oppression.”
Mason, The Raceless Antiracist, quoted in racelessmovement essay (May 2025)

Example

Francis Galton coined "eugenics" in 1883 — a direct intellectual line from belief in racial hierarchy to forced sterilization, state-sponsored discrimination, and genocide. Hitler and Henry Ford built on the same belief structure. The categories enabled the atrocities.

5 The raceless translator

Change the language to change the thinking. Speak about racism's effects without reinforcing racial categories.

Instead of "a black person" or "the white community," say "a person racialized as black" or "people racialized as white." The shift names the act of categorization rather than treating the category as a true description. It distances speech from the fiction without ignoring the racism the fiction produces.

“We might say "a person racialized as black" rather than describing someone as "a black person" to distance ourselves from the fiction of race.”
Mason, The Raceless Antiracist, quoted in racelessmovement essay (May 2025)

Example

When a form asks for your race, select "Other" or "Prefer not to answer." When you describe a community, name what's actually shared — geography, culture, history, faith — not the racial label. Small habits, repeated, reshape thought.

6 Race and racism can be ended

Race is a human invention. Anything humans invented, humans can dismantle.

Race and racism are context-dependent — they vary by time, place, and culture, which means they are not fixed features of humanity. They can be ended, beginning with personal practice and extending through institutional change. The framework is not just a diagnosis; it's a path forward.

Example

Concrete actions are available now: end race-based language in daily speech; petition for the removal of race from census forms and official documents; reject racial self-identification on forms; build connections across perceived racial lines; engage cultures unfamiliar to you; pray for heart-level change; read Mason's book. The end of race begins in practice.