After reading the article in the open thread invite, I re-examined an area that I haven't thought deeply about since January 1997.

I remember staring at the form, not wanting to choose. If I marked the box for "white" my son would forever be questioned. Imagine applying for a driver’s license with a birth certificate that states you are white when anyone can look at you and see your brown skin. In these post-9/11 days that might even get you a few days of detainment while they sort out who you really are.

So my only other option is "black". In this moment it is crystal for me. We have not moved past race. It defines us. Talk about Judas. Although my tiny son had no wish to separate himself from the mother that loves him, cares for him, changes his diapers (not to mention his meal source!) ; he was upon birth forced to chose between his love for his parents and making it easy for himself.

I started to wonder if I was the only one bothered by this government enforced segregation. This classification of humans by physical characteristics of skin color, eye shape, nose shape, and genetic inheritance.

Apparently I wasn't. I remember a friend of mine going into a fast food joint and when a woman asked her "What is he?" while looking at her dark curly-haired son, she snapped back "HUMAN!” Obviously this individual meant no harm. It is just that after having to label your child at every doctor’s appointment, daycare application, and insurance policy, you become raw.

Which leads to my question. Why is this labeling necessary? I am not against all forms of race identification. I certainly am not advocating for racial pride to disappear or for people to forget their history.

But there is a difference. I am of Irish-Scot descent. I will forever be proud and have informed my children of the great people of which they are descendent. This pride however has not required me to list it on every form I fill out. 

We have come to depend upon it for several reasons. The labels have been needed to track progress (or failure) in certain social areas. It is also easier to identify criminals if the news anchor can tell us whether it is a middle-aged white man/black man/Hispanic man. And however will we make sure everyone has a fair chance in the country if we can't identify who gets jobs and college admissions?

Yes in our past labels have been needed. My hope is that in a future America this will not be so.

This hope was reinforced after reading this article. In it, Dr. Sylvia Spengler, a geneticist at U.C. Berkeley, argues that more genetic differences separates tall people from short people than one race from another. If fact, she argues that "race" in and of itself doesn't truly exist. It is something we have created to make it easier to identify individuals. Sound familiar?

I'm no Pollyanna. What I envision isn't for us to blend into an indistinguishable color of dull grey. What I want can't be forced or mandated. What I want is a shift. What I want to happen to America is what has happened to me.

My children and I proceed throughout our days without great thought to race. We eat, fight, hug, argue, and drive to endless activities without much confrontation about racial makeup. I can remember once passing the window in a store front and seeing my dark children holding my white hands. It hit me then, this is what we look like to the world. But most of the time I forget they look different from me. They forget I look different from them. That’s the way it should be.