ABSTRACT
Trying to understand race in the United States is like putting together a three-dimensional 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle in dim light. Given the vicissitudes of historical amnesia and the elusive quality of communal memory, it is unclear if we even have all the pieces to begin with. Race is about everything—historical, political, personal—and race is about nothing —a construct, an invention that has changed dramatically over time and historical circumstance. From the smallest of gestures—what is packed in a child's lunch box or passed on in a smile or a frown—to the largest of historical statements—Brown vs. Board of Education, the Vietnam War, the Hyde Amendment—race has been, and continues to be, encoded in all of our lives.
