Andrew [Sullivan] writes that liberals should stop saying "truly stupid things like race has no biological element." I agree. Race clearly has a biological element — because we have awarded it one.
That is quite a clever self-contradiction, and undoubtedly a delight to the bien-pensant readers of The Atlantic. Race has a biological element and yet it doesn't because race is merely socially construed to have a biological element.
Socially construed by whom?
"Race," writes the great historian Nell Irvin Painter, "is an idea, not a fact." Indeed. Race does not need biology. Race only requires some good guys with big guns looking for a reason.
Got that?