To What Extent Is "Race" Essential to One's Identity?

This post was originally written as a comment to JJohnson's great, thought provoking blog entry titled "My Race is My Identity." It will likely be helpful to read that post and mine.

The big question from class Tuesday and definitely in this post:
To what extent is race an essential property of an individual's identity? Esp. in the way that other properties are not? I.e. Is it essential to me being me that I'm a certain height or weight? That right now I have the property of being in a particular location? That I have certain beliefs and desires? That I am the oldest sibling in my family, and was not a younger sibling? What properties can I alter and still be me?

Here is a somewhat absurd thought experiment to investigate this issue:
If one day you woke up and were no longer African-American, but were instead either Native American, a Mexican-American, or even a white-American, would you still be you? (and if there is a distinction to be made between which say so, i.e. I'd still be me so long as it an x,y,z group/race and not group/race q, and try to explain why if possible)

Now...presuming race is not ultimately meaningless like Montagu contends, I think we have to sort out exactly what losing a racial identity would mean, from a sociohistorical conception of race like the one Du Bois has.

Is it that you just wake up one day with another skin color and some other physical characteristics people attribute to a given group?

For the sake of rhetorical flair, lets call this the MJ Case:

Assuming Michael Jackson is black/African-American (I imagine someone might dispute this, but I don't know why or how). Is Michael still michael, even despite having different facial features and a far lighter skin pigment than he did in '81? The next question, then, is is he still African-American? His 'common history' hasn't changed...he still grew up in an African-American family and presumably learned and experienced all the things necessary for the bond of a 'common history.' I think the best conclusion from this case is that MJ is still sociohistorically black.

Or, what if you had a new 'common history', yet physically were the same?

I'm having a really hard time figuring out exactly how this would work...namely how much of your current 'common history' with your own race would need to be wiped out, and what exactly that comes to.

This is roughly what I've come up with (other possibilities are definitely welcome):
To get a new common history, would be to have your own ideas shaped and largely framed in reference to past historical forces beyond your control, most specifically past ideologies/attitudes about race relations.

I'd also emphasize that these ideologies/attitudes will still exist in some form or another in your own time: I.e. It's fair to say the KKK strand of white supremacy is a weaker force today than it was in 1960 and that any idea that non-whites are only property is practically dead, but that some other manifestations of white supremacy are more prevalent and considered more acceptable, perhaps something like "whiteness" is typically more beautiful than "non-whiteness."

So with this idea of what a common history means for an individual, lets apply this to the objection that Ian's attitude toward judging people on their merits is the product of him having the good fortune of experiencing the less discriminatory side of white supremacy. Let's say Ian fully acquaints himself with the past history of African-Americans and definitely is familiar with the strands that most directly shape what might be dubbed 'black consciousness today.' He also interacts on a daily basis with African-Americans. Can he be considered a part of the African-American group?

Unless African-American literally requires African-American ancestors, I'm not sure how this move can be blocked...The problem with the ancestor rationale is that it can't explain how did the first African-American become the first African-American if a sufficient condition is that a forebear is required; it can't explain how the racial category itself came into being. Maybe personal experience with discrimination is a needed condition? But if that's true, then there is the odd conclusion that black babies that die at birth aren't a part of their race unless someone did something racially negative toward them; or that an African-American orphan who looks white and is raised by whites isn't black, until he and others become aware of his 'blackness.' Anyone else have any ideas on this? Reactions?

To backtrack a bit, there might be an ironic twist counter to the "Ian is white, so he has the luxury of looking at himself as an individual and being judged on his merits and not his race" argument. Namely, that if the determining factor of race is ultimately the result of attitudes/ideas of in a specific power hierarchy (e.g. America) and which groups are at the top of the power pyramid, then in some sense all those top ideals are accessible to lower rungs.

Now obviously the individual merits idea is being trampled upon by other ideas that negatively discriminate based off race. But if those bad ideas are removed from a dominant spot in the power structure, then the positive, arguably colorblind, idea still exists and can be incorporated. Then, does it particularly matter where the idea actually originated from? If it’s black, white, asian, native american, hispanic?

For example, part of the German national identity was at one point Nazism and by extension rabid anti-semitism, but that national identity no longer contains those elements. Now, is there any sense that Aryans today would be obligated to denounce Relativity theory because it was invented by Albert Einstein, a jew? My roommate, an African-American male, insisted I include this, after reading your blog post JJohnson; hopefully it can help generate some interesting discussion: “To say that your race is your identity, or to say that you are who you are because of your race, ultimately is a cop out. To me, it seems to say that everything that is me, or everything that’s meaningful about me, is what it is because of the people who are in my race who came before me. I can’t imagine that this is any type of freedom or truly meaningful definition. If I were not my race, there may be small differences, but I do not feel that I would lose what truly makes me “me.” I may lose the history, and because of that history I may lose certain partial views on life or society, but that’s not what makes me “me.” My race is not my identity, and I thank God for that.”