But, my (step-) daughter wanted a simple (simplistic) answer, and so she asked me what “race” Michael Jackson is. Her school book says that human beings can reliably and meaninfully be divided into about five races, by making reference to where their ancestors came from and the color of their skin.

I told her, ‘Race doesn’t exist as a biological concept. It has been disproved by the advance of science, e.g. DNA studies and biology.’ For example, Thomas Jefferson’s must all be of the same “race” and yet he has great grandchildren who are considered to be “Black” and other great grandchildren who are considered to be of the “white race.” Do dogs ever have cats among their grandchildren? Do tigers have wildebeasts among their progeny? Then how can human beings, ostensibly of one race, have progeny of a different “race?”

My daughter said she was referring to what society believes us to be, so I had to discuss with her the biological illogic of the “one-drop” rule, by which we would have to conclude that Michael Jackson is “Black,” regardless of what the Internet color chart tells us.

I picked up a jar of honey and asked my daughter what color it was. She said it was “brown.” I put the jar of honey next to my arm and asked her if she saw any similarity between the color of the honey and the color of my arm. She said they were virtually identical. So, I asked her the color of my arm. She said my arm is “black” because society says that it is black. No science ever advances that is based on such illogic, much less based on perceptual delusions.

My daughter says that society is in agreement that “race” exists. I remind her that society was once in agreement that the earth was flat and that the Catholic Church even prosecuted those who insisted that the earth was round. Was the earth flat, because society said so, or round, because planetary science inescapably makes it so? Is the duration of daylight hours and the coming of the seasons determined by society’s opinion of the shape of the earth, or by the shape of the earth regardless of society’s opinion?

But that raises another interesting question: If race is not about science, but is about human beings’ subjective and largely irrational perceptions, then whose perceptions matter most? The perceptions of society or the perceptions of the individual? The self-perception of the individual obviously is important because it may be the basis of his social group interactions and his political allegiances. But the perception of the social group and of society are important because they may well determine the parameters within which the individual must function.

For example, during Jim Crow, it was the society’s perception that determined whether or not a person was eligible to use “Whites Only” bathrooms, but it was individual self-identification that determined the level and nature of ones allegiance and dedication to Blacks as a group. Obviously, these are two very different things – the perception of one’s “race” by OTHERS and one’s SELF-identification. The terms “oreo,” “field negro” and “house negro” and “ni**ger-lover” are all linguistic evidence that there IS more than one “racial” identification and category into which each person fits: How he perceives himself and how he is perceived by hundreds or thousands of individual others.

When you accept that “race” is subjective and arbitrary, and in many cases bares no relationship to biology, then you realize that many of us have more than one race. We have the “race” with which we identify ourselves, the “race” which our family believes to be accurate based on its knowledge of our family tree, the “racial group(s)” into which we would be put by DNA analysis of our blood, and the various racial groups into which society puts us by eye-balling us as we go about our daily lives. In this sense, we are all multi-racial, all having at least two identities – the ones that others ascribes to us and the one(s) we hold for ourselves.

It immediately becomes obvious, then, that there can be as many determinations of our racial category as there are people trying to make that determination. You are “black” to others when they are able to perceive that you have even one “Black” ancestor, but you are white to those who cannot perceive a Black ancestor. And admittedly we are not interested in biological truths here, but only in perceptions. (If we were interested in biological truths, then there would be more people submitting to DNA testing and using these tests to prove their “race” conclusively.

So, we are subject to a social and political system in which subjective and very much arbitrary perceptions matter more than reality, and in which no agreement may be possible between self-perception, self-identification, and the many perceptions of me held by various and multiple others who are not interested in objective biological truths.

So, what’s the simple answer to the question of Michael Jackson’s race? If Michael Jackson submits to a DNA test, then such a test can probably identify the regions of the earth from which his ancestors came. Such a test would, in all likelihood, show that his ancestors came from Africa, Europe and perhaps Asia and North America as well. And then, in our obtuse human insistence on simplicity where none exists, we would insist –in spite of having found a scientific answer to the contrary – that Michael Jackson is a member of the race of one but not all of this ancestors.

We would insist that his ancestors were from the separate “turtle race” and “rabbit race” and “bear race” and “dog race” and “cat race” but, nonetheless, or precisely because of that information, we now know that Michael Jackson is a “bear race” and all of is children will likewise be of the “bear race,” regardless of whom they mate with. Got that?