In Alcoff’s piece we learn about the three basic pastimes for understanding race and one of them being essentialism. In essentialsim the key piece is that racial identities are stable across time and space. And that is not true. And I say that is not true because of factors like time period and location. Identities like African-American, Afro Latino/Caribbean are new identities. They are literally only identities because of the transatlantic slave trade. 450 years ago African-American Afro Caribbean Afro none of those things were being used by anyone because they were not terms until mid 1600s . As an African-American woman myself one thing me and my Caribbean or Latino friends always talk about is that there’s somewhat of a disconnect between us and Africans because Africans are like lucky in a way. They are going by the original term. Yes there was death and destruction and colonization for them but they have that tiny fact that they didn’t get shipped off to other continents. They got to keep the OG term. Technically we should just be African or even like the term black woman back in 1191 and 1347 no one was using that. Same with people in Malaysia and they weren’t saying oh I’m Malaysian/ I’m a south east Asian they went by their tribal identification. All those terms like black girl, asian girls, etc…

we have those terms because of colonization. during class we talked about how the idea of being anti-race and not seeing race only works out in theory. 2000 years ago it worked because there was no idea of race in ancient times.We can’t not see race even though it’s fake because of colonization and white supremacy, the idea that we need to spread whiteness all across the globe because this skin color and hair type and color is whats right. and I don’t think people understand that a whole demographic technically shouldnt be a thing like its interesting that someone like tems and me are both black women because of phenotype but at the same time somenone like her who is from Nigeria isn’t really a black woman cuz she doesn’t need to call herself that because just calling herself African or Nigerian is fine that’s correct. It’s weird you know. Before colonization you were just your tribe. You know an Oromo woman or a Fulani woman is and was just that. An Oromo or Fulani woman not black, negro, colored etc… and it just hurts you know. Coming to that realization that its like of course I am proud of what I am and thankful to all my ancestors before me that are the reason im even here today but its just kind of depressing to think about.