I Have To Admit I Still Don't Fully Understand Why You Can't Change Your Race

"Race is a social construct with no basis in reality, but it’s also EXTREMELY important no one try to change theirs"

A couple weeks ago NBC News ran an article by Emi Tuyetnhi Tran, a summer intern there, headlined “Inside the online world of people who think they can change their race.” Subheadline: “Practitioners of ‘race change to another,’ or RCTA, purport to be able to manifest physical changes in their appearance and even their genetics to truly become a different race.”

It’s a very of-the-moment story, and it includes some fascinating details. Here’s how it starts:

Since before she hit double digits, Alisa, 15, said she has felt a special connection with Japan. The high school student, who asked to be anonymous for fear of being doxxed online, was born in Ukraine and lives in Maryland, but she now goes by the Japanese name Miyuki and listens to “subliminals” that promise she will wake up and be Japanese. So far, she believes that by listening to YouTube videos with lo-fi music and photos of East Asian facial features while she sleeps, her vision has cleared, her eyelids have become smaller and her hair is just a bit darker.

Practitioners of what they call “race change to another,” or RCTA, purport to be able to manifest physical changes in their appearance and even their genetics to become a different race. They tune in to subliminal videos that claim can give them an “East Asian appearance” or “Korean DNA.”

Wild stuff! But I also found it interesting how much effort the article spent to make it clear that you really can’t change your race. It’s such an important point that Tran deployed Experts to make it.