In which I quote myself

I'm putting the last touches on my thesis before turning it in tomorrow, and I wanted to share one of my favorite insights. Quoted from my introduction:

This text argues from the perspective that all races are ultimately social constructs, but the divisions between races, arbitrary though they may be, are usually associated with observable differences – not only in the physical attributes that are the most common basis of racial distinctions, but behaviorally as well. Minority ethnicities often speak a different language or dialect than the majority in which they are embedded, and they often have a distinct culture or sub-culture. These very real differences can somewhat complicate the study of racism, because racism specifically describes behavior rooted in the stereotyping of human beings based on their attributed race, not on their culture. An example of how the intertwining of these two facets can lead to analytical complications is the fact that the African American community has never fully assimilated into mainstream American culture, and it seems fair to argue that this is to some extent due to racist exclusion and to some extent due to the existence of a distinct African American culture. Because there is unquestionably such a distinct culture, the perception that there exists a difference between African Americans and the white American majority can not be based entirely on the perception of a racial difference, and some proportion of the problem of interracial relations must in fact be a problem of intercultural relations.