Quote by Christopher Hitchens
For years, I declined to fill in the form for my Senate press credential that asked me to state my 'race,' unless I was permitted to put 'human.' The form had to be completed under penalty of perjury, so I could not in conscience put 'white,' which is not even a color let alone a 'race,' and I sternly declined to put 'Caucasian,' which is an exploded term from a discredited ethnology. Surely the essential and unarguable core of King's campaign was the insistence that pigmentation was a false measure: a false measure of mankind (yes, mankind) and an inheritance from a time of great ignorance and stupidity and cruelty, when one drop of blood could make you 'black.
Summary
This quote highlights the author's refusal to indicate their race on a Senate press credential form. They express their objection to the limited options provided, as they resonate with Martin Luther King Jr.'s belief that categorizing individuals based on their skin color is a false measure of humanity. The author rejects both 'white' and 'Caucasian' as inadequate and outdated terms, signaling their opposition to racial labels that originated from a time of ignorance, prejudice, and discrimination. By advocating for a unified view of humanity, the author challenges the division caused by racial categorizations.
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