Does race matter?

What matter most in a multiracial metropolis, like London and Hong Kong?

Yes, for better or for worse, it remains to be race. Race still matters, and matters more than anything else in a world where multiracial/multiethnic/multicultural ethos continue to grow.

We do have our ways to identity ourselves in terms of race and ethnicity.

Society 'corrects' the ways in which we perceive ourselves and think about race and ethnicity in terms of appearance, skin colour, friends, tastes, etc. Even if we wish "to deny/assert legitimacy of ethnic and racial labels and constructs, or resist racial categorization, the wider societal gaze," the sociologist Miri Song argues, "could make it very difficult for... [us] to remain insulated from racial discourses which assign people to various racial categories."

Miri Song's latest article "Does 'Race' Matter? A Study of 'Mixed Race' Siblings' Identifications" (The Sociological Review, Vol. 58, No. 2, 2010, pp. 265-85) investigate the ways in which mixed siblings perceive and think about race and differences in racial, ethnic, and religious identification within their families. She asks the role of race and the recognition of difference play in sibling relationships and in family life more generally.

Some of her subjects considered themselves British and ethnicity a "side detail" while to some others physical appearance was the basis of judgement from others which tended to make it impossible to derogate race or ethnicity in their lives.

"People just stereotype me and most Black people on a daily basis. They have their preconceived ideas and prejudices," one respondent reported. One of the respondents who looked White said "When we [his younger sister, Jane, and he] were at school, I used to feel guilty because I never experienced the racism that Jane [who looked Asian because of skin colour] did. I used to see her crying about it as a child."

One interviewee confidently noted "I can blend with any group and I find that I do not get discriminated as a non-White individual...If I felt that my future prospects were being affected by my race I would diplomatically ensure that whoever was getting in my way received a verbal slap and then find another path to where I want to go. My life is not defined by what other people want to let me do."