"While challenging the construct of race is at the core of evolving human consciousness..."
I actually agree somewhat with this observation, but not in the spirit she intended.
Is this an appropriate place to ask what is the difference between "race" and "ethnicity"? A lot of gummint forms seem to ask for both, and it never made sense to me.
My late wife was from South America, of a family directly descended from the Spanish
conquistadores. She was proud of her native country and never hesitated to declare it. She was white and would become incensed if anyone suggested otherwise. But she didn't like or understand the term "hispanic." Her view was, sure she spoke Spanish -- that was her native language. But she wasn't from Spain, she had never been to Spain, and she certainly didn't feel or recognize any ethnic bonds to people from Cuba, Puerto Rico, or the Dominican Republic.
So WTF is "ethnicity"? If there's a catch-all category for people whose native language is Spanish, why isn't there a "Francic" classification for people whose native language is French? Why don't we use "Germanic" as an ethnicity for people whose native language (or whose parents' native language) is German? Why is "ethnicity" essentially "Hispanic" or "Other"?