Over the last couple of years I feel like I have been careening from one outrageous uniquely American tragedy to another. These often involve race or gun violence and all too often both.

I see horrific state violence directed at black Americans causing a justified outpouring of rage and frustration. I view all of this aware that my white privilege which allows me to be a step removed. My life is not in danger from state sanctioned violence. America’s Institutionalized Racism is the water that we swim in. I struggle to be aware of my privilege and be both allay and advocate for change.

Wrapped up in the violence is an unarticulated racial narrative containing cultural and ethnic stereotypes, misinformation about “others”, and a constant re-enforcement of the racial status quo. America must work pretty hard to constantly mend the fences that keep us from recognizing that we are all in this together as equals deserving to be treated with dignity, respect, and justice.

Race is a human construct that ignores the fact that we are all equally human with insignificant genetic differences. Because we use race to allocate power, it has become cultural reality. It is, at its core, a pernicious myth created in the past that still plays in the present written in rivers of the blood of the oppressed.

Yet race remains elusive. I remember in 2012 after George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin for the audacious crime of being a black teenager walking down the street, my friends on Fox News could not wrap their minds around the idea that Zimmerman could identify as Hispanic and White. After all, Hispanics were a demonized and devalued “Other” – they could not be “White”. One could not claim to be both.

State violence against black Americans continues, often documented on cell phone video providing evidence that was not previously available. A new window on truth now exists that can be used to hold those in power accountable for their actions.

America’s collective consciousness is at teachable moment. “I can’t breathe”. “Don’t Shoot.” “Black Lives Matter.” The optimist in me wants to believe that we are at a place of possibility in confronting racism and white privilege.

Recently, Rachael Dolezal challenged our American Racial construct. The NAACP chapter president in Spokane, Washington, who presented herself as multiracial and publically identified as Black. Although her own backstory is complicated, her white biological parents outed her as having no known black ancestry. She became the object of public shaming in the news media, her claim of blackness was repudiated by conservative pundits and progressive activists alike.

The media circus that followed revealed the extent that the concept of race and identity are more complicated than many of us may have previously understood them to be. How free are we to choose who we are? What are the lines between respect, empathy, solidarity, and cultural appropriation? Is there a contemporary one-drop rule? Can someone qualify with “no drops’? What level of racial ancestry is sufficient to allow one to identify as black? Are all of us born into clear racial categories?

As a member of the white dominant group I feel unqualified to fully address these questions. I lack the lived experience of being in an oppressed group. The various opinions that I have read from Black Scholars and Activists are just that: varied. Black identity and Black Culture are, of course, diverse and varied. The Black experience of oppression and exclusion is, unfortunately, common to all.

In our society there are limits to self-creation and identity. Rachael Dolezal crossed the line into inappropriate cultural appropriation and deception.

As long as race is used to allocate power, the racial walls that we erect have meaning. It is through challenging privilege and raising awareness of injustice that change may – must come about.

I take this opportunity on World Humanist Day to re-dedicate myself to recognize the Human Worth and Dignity of Everyone, and work for equal rights and justice for all.