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With race as religion, we seem to be a country where a large part of the atheists still go to church and speak as if god existed. I am trying to figure out who we don't want to upset.
Public health agencies are still trying to untangle the effects of race, however it's defined---let's say "the effects of racial classification," rather---on the health of populations and the disparities in health that are the artefact of the racial system. And to do so, researchers must always ask people their race, even though they don't believe in it themselves.
The racial system survives the death of its underlying beliefs. But the system is not synonymous with the behavior of individuals---maybe not even the mass behavior of individuals. I don't pretend to understand it all myself.
But the system certainly is not equivalent to its cynical political manipulation by you-know-who. It survives by itself. Fortunately, I think it functions like force and power: just as the use of force subtracts from power, the more the GOP uses race, the weaker it becomes.
