Only racists believe that race is not a social construct.

I believed this once, but now I understand that race is simply a label used to justify discrimination and hate. However, being black made it very difficult to finally embrace this idea. And only through an instance of racism on campus was I able to completely understand why race has always been a social construct.

Ignoring race was never an option for me. Skin color is not the only difference between the races. Along with my black skin came a history book filled with over 400 years worth of differences. Reading about white supremacists murdering four little girls in a black church bombing makes it very difficult to dismiss race. Knowing that the girls’ white murderers went free for 40 years afterwards makes it almost impossible.

In America, blackness means more than having kinky hair, fuller hips and a darker complexion. Blackness also absorbs a collective consciousness of the pain that my people endured simply because they had that kinky hair, those fuller hips and this darker complexion.

Race has a painful connection to racism in black history, making it harder for people who have suffered through racism to think of race as nothing more than a label. But it must be thought of as such. If race continues to exist, people of color and ethnicity will forever be divided.

Unfortunately, racism in America seems to speak only to the relationship between blacks and whites, giving blacks a monopoly on the term racism. Blacks are not the only people of color. Nor are we the only victims of racism. Hispanics, Asians and Arabs are all people of color who’ve experienced large-scale racism in America. Yet, their stories are rarely told in dialogues concerning racism, which creates a double-edged sword that slices and divides minorities’ groups.

On one hand we have animosity brewing among unrecognized groups. But on the flipside we get the “who’s had it worse?” debate, which often turns into accusations of stealing the racial spotlight.

And at the end of the day we stand divided and weak, remaining at the will of the white majority, which will ultimately decide which group will get the most attention. However, people of color aren’t the only ones affected. The relationship between blacks and Jews exemplifies such divisions as well. During the ’60s, Jews and blacks worked side by side to tackle racism in America.

The movie “Mississippi Burning” depicts a factual account of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation surrounding the deaths of three civil rights activists killed by Ku Klux Klansmen to discourage people’s involvement in the “freedom summer.” Two of the activists were Jewish, and the third was black. Many believe that if all three workers were black, the murders would not have received attention.

These events, often referred to as the Mississippi Burnings, were woven into America’s collective memory as a defining example of racism. Yet recognizing it as such ignores the crucial role of the two Jewish men, and worse, creates friction between the black and Jewish communities.

Jews classify themselves as an ethnic group, not as a race. Labeling the burnings as racism ignores the involvement and sacrifice of the two Jewish civil rights workers who fought alongside blacks for freedom and equality. Furthermore, it places Jews into a position where they have to challenge the perception that the burnings were simply a black/white issue. This causes more conflict, because in drawing attention to themselves, they create the false perception that they are trying to steal the spotlight away from blacks.

Our university recently had a similar problem on campus. Attempting to sabotage Michigan Student Assembly elections, fellow University students hid behind the anonymity of e-mails to intimidate Jewish and black students into not voting for a particular candidate. Essentially, these e-mails told members of these communities that they should question a particular candidate because the candidate and MSA were racists. It was blatantly obvious that these e-mails were sent as a part of a political scheme to sabotage a political campaign — explaining why most of the e-mails were deleted and trashed.

With recent attacks on affirmative action, low minority retention rates and the controversy surrounding divestment, students have much larger beasts to spear. However, I saw these e-mails as representative of the “race” problem. Someone obviously placed a political smear into a box, wrapped it in racial slurs and anti-Semitic tones and sent it to be delivered by an anonymous source.