Gray
The concept of race aims to categorize people into broad groups like “black” and “white”, when in reality there are so many biological and cultural variations. There are as many different types of people as there are people. As the term “black and white” is symbolic of a very polar and simplistic point of view, so is race simplistic and insufficient in its way of classifying people. Between black and white lie many shades of gray, and so are there many differences between broad racial classifications. What all people have in common is the fact that we are all so different.
Gray, as a race, is an intentional paradox, for in one proclaiming him or herself as gray, they are in fact renouncing race, and issuing a sort of silent critique of the concept itself. Some people, when asked their race, will reply with “human”, often only to receive accusations of pretentiousness. In truth their response is a forward-minded defiance of an archaic tradition. “Gray” is intended as both a sort of compromise for those critics, since they seem so insistent on applying color terms to people, as well as a mockery of their ignorance.
Gray, unlike black and white, is not one color. Say “gray” to one hundred people and each one of them will picture something different. This is analogous to how all people are as different as their perceptions of the world. If every person is a “black” to another person’s “white”, just in the sense that they are so different, there is always a “gray area” where they overlap, where they have things in common. However, this area is relatively small in comparison to the gestalt of any one individual’s identity, and therefore cannot be used to classify any group that shares it. The gray area we share is our common humanity, just as we share a gray area with the entire animal kingdom, and with all “livingkind”.
Classifications are both broad and specific, circumstantial and subjective, and ultimately meaningless. While they do facilitate our mental processing of external phenomena, they are also an excuse not to examine a particular thing, or person, in depth. From categories arise generalizations, and subsequently discrimination as human tendencies towards hierarchal behavior are applied. Because the color term gray can refer to any specific shade in the blending of black and white, as well as encompass all such shades, gray as a race represents both the whole of humanity and the individual. It simultaneously promotes both individuality and unity, and therefore is a more ideal way of acknowledging ourselves and others.