The concept of race can be a valuable tool in analyzing social structures, but we must also keep in mind the consequences of being overzealous in its application. During the latter half of the 20th century, the progressive sentiment about race and the Civil Rights movement was that we should look beyond outward appearances and resist granting too much importance to race. Martin Luther King Jr.
famously endorsed the view, stating in his 1963 speech, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Since the early 1990s, there has been a marked shift towards placing the topic of race at the center of discussions about discrimination and inequality, starting first as an intellectual movement in universities known as “Critical Race Theory.” Kimberle Crenshaw expanded on the project, introducing the notion of “intersectionality” where an individual can hold multiple group memberships such as being a “female” and being “Black” that combine to produce unique kinds of discrimination.
Some philosophers and scholars argue that race can be helpful in identifying sources of rights violations. Race is important, according to some, because there are some injustices that are only visible if we take it into account. Given that there are no sets of biological properties that are shared by all and only members of a particular race, the concept is a mere.
