Race Isn't Real...

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:15]You can't identify as white.

[00:00:19]You can't identify as black.

[00:00:22]You are identified. Race is a social construct forever. changing and shapeshifting to preserve privilege and supremacy. I run an organization called Neurommancers. I'm wearing the top. And Neurommancers is a peer-led organization providing autonomous abolitionist and accessible mental health care for and by the neurodyiverent plus community.

[00:00:53]We are a largely remote organization which means that we tend to have people around the world engaging with our work, which is exciting.

[00:01:04]One thing that I've noticed is how different people from different places in the world experience race.

[00:01:12]It's helped me understand how flexible this social construct really is. For example, we had lots of people who had grown up in the USA and America coming into our spaces, uh, an organization that was and internationally accessible and continues to be uh rooted in a UK context.

[00:01:36]And they were continually baffled and confused by the fact that we didn't use the acronym BIPO, which stands for black indigenous people of color.

[00:01:51]We ran events that were for black people. We ran events that were for brown people, Asian people. But we never really explicitly said indigenous.

[00:02:01]Neither did we explicitly name the Latino, Latina, Latina, Latinx community.

[00:02:10]Now the reason for this is because there aren't many in the UK.

[00:02:17]When we think about Asian even, we are generally thinking about people from South Asia, from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and so on. There aren't a huge amount statistically, I think. I'll have to look that up, but you know, generally we have a stronger South Asian population than we do, for example, an East Asian or even Southeast Asian population.

[00:02:48]Without that context, our work could easily and I guess understandably come across as exclusionary.

[00:03:05]But what was less understandable is the American centrist imperialist perspective that a construct in America reflects a construct elsewhere in the world. We can't take concepts and systems from one country, one place, and assume that they make sense everywhere. People who claim indigenity in England, for example, are really just saying that because they want to kick everybody else out. Land back in a British context is not about sovereignity and decolonial practice and healing.

[00:03:48]It's literal white supremacy and xenophobia.

[00:03:51]The reason I decided to make this video is because I wanted to share my thoughts on race being about perception rather than identity.

[00:04:03]So many people who are living in an American context or living in a context where they are severed from their history, their roots, regardless of what shade of skin their body is enveloped in. It's a creepy way of saying it.

[00:04:19][laughter] Race is about perception, not reality.

[00:04:24]It is not intended to be an accurate representation of self. Yet I have observed so many people defensive about their blackness, defensive about their whiteness, and approaching it as something that they are claiming and identifying as when in reality race is something that is projected onto all of us. It is not truthful. It is not real.

[00:04:49]There is really no person who is truly white or truly black. These are concepts and constructs. And it's important to recognize them because they affect and shape the material realities of every day.

[00:05:05]But acknowledging something, understanding something, recognizing something doesn't mean that you have to affirm it and doesn't mean, of course, that you have to agree with it. There are many people I meet who occupy this space of white passing.

[00:05:25]And it's an interesting and complex space to be in. And this video is not necessarily meant to be a deep dive.

[00:05:34]It's meant to be a gentle dipping of the feet into the pool um and an overview of some of my thoughts. So, I won't get super deep into it, but it was one of the inspirations for this video because I observed how people held on to race, held on to this idea of white passing and also how some people rejected it.

[00:06:00]How some people claimed blackness or brownness even though most people would not label them as such and most people see them as a white person that they move through the world with white privilege. This video and my perspective is not agreeing or disagreeing, denying or validating the idea of white passing, but to those of us who feel diminished and erased by racial categories remind us that that's what they're supposed to do. They're intended to flatten, erase, and simplify very complex human experiences.

[00:06:42]If you don't feel represented, if not all of you feels acknowledged and held and recognized within white or white passing or black or brown or any racial category or label that we place on ourselves and each other.

[00:06:58]That's okay. You don't have to grip onto those racial categories for dear life because they are the things that are draining the life away from us. People who are white passing are really just white. And race doesn't reflect reality.

[00:07:16]It doesn't reflect your heritage. It doesn't reflect the complexity of who you are.

[00:07:23]But if you move through the world being perceived a certain way when it comes to race, the way you present is more important than the heritage you have, the background you come from, and the cultures that raised you. For example, I am mixed race. Most people would never assume that, and people are always incredibly surprised when I tell them that I have Austrian heritage. I don't know anything about Austria except I love The Sound of Music and have watched that many times. But beyond that, I don't know anything about my heritage.

[00:08:00]Um, obviously the other main thing I know is Nazis, so maybe I have a Nazi ancestor.

[00:08:07]And if I do, I hope you're turning brave.

[00:08:11]But I feel like I occupy a similarish but not quite To those of us who are white passing, I have a mixed heritage. It's complex. It's layered.

[00:08:26]I'm from three different continents.

[00:08:31]But when people look at me, they don't see that. They don't expect that. And I can say it's not been that much of a challenge overall because I'm not particularly connected to any of the places that I come from. Thank you, British colonialism.

[00:08:46]In other words, I feel like Throughout a lot of my life, I've not felt like I properly occupy this idea we have of black or blackness.

[00:08:59]And I resonate a lot with those of us who hold on to these racial categories because we are disconnected for whatever reason, but probably colonialism from our heritage and our history. And I think we should all take this as an invitation to reckon with our histories and to find and trace and connect to our ancestors.

[00:09:25]I'm not uh promoting any particular spiritual journey or practice, but remind us that it's not just black people, it's not just brown people, it's not just racially exploited and marginalized people who need to connect to that history for the sake of healing.

[00:09:44]It's all of us. If you are white and you don't know where you come from, your European ancestry is important to reckon with because whilst you might identify this role of white person that's not who you really are. It shapes you but it isn't you. So whilst the world sees me as such and in many ways I am aware of it and note it and understand it and connect to it. I don't know if I identify as black.

[00:10:17]I don't know if I want to see myself through a colonial gaze. And I don't know if I want to see you through that gaze either.

[00:10:27]I don't believe that anyone is really black or anyone is really white or anyone is really much of anything.

[00:10:34]I think that we all deserve the freedom to create who we are outside of the systems and constructs and hierarchies that we are forced to occupy.

[00:10:47]And maybe you disagree, maybe you feel like you identify as those labels, but I feel like deep down in this world, in this moment, maybe you do identify with it. Maybe you do consider yourself white. Maybe you do selfidentify as black.

[00:11:19]I don't know.

[00:11:21]I hope you found this video interesting.

[00:11:24]I would love to hear your reflections in the comments. This is a very halfthought through video, but I I'm recording it as a reminder that we are all so much more interesting and complex and unique than the labels that we are flattened into.