Who’s Black and Why?

What is race? By now, we all know that race is an idea: It is the product of human reflection rather than mere observation of the facts of the world. Race cannot be said to have been discovered; it had to be invented. This aspect of the subject is now so familiar that almost all recent books about its origins and development have announced in their title the intention to explore some chapter in the long and awful narrative of what they call the “invention of race.”