From NBC News:

Inside the online world of people who think they can change their race

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.

July 30, 2023, 4:00 AM PDT
By Emi Tuyetnhi Tran

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.”

I would guess that most of them are children or are new ex-children. The feeling that you can turn into something else by wishing hard is a quintessentially childish one. But our age is an increasingly childish one, so NBC News turns to The Experts to explain that Race Does Not Exist which is why you can’t change your race. But you can change into a boy just by clicking your heels and saying “I am a boy” three times.

But experts underscore that it is simply impossible to change your race.

…

Experts agree race is not genetic. But they contend that even though race is a cultural construct, it is impossible to change your race because of the systemic inequalities inherent to being born into a certain race.

David Freund [Email him], a historian of race and politics and an associate professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, corroborates the idea that a “biological race” does not exist. What we know today as “race” is a combination of inherited characteristics and cultural traditions passed down through generations, he said.

In addition, Freund said, the modern concept of race is inseparable from the systemic racial hierarchy hundreds of years in the making. Simply put, changing races is not possible, because “biological races” themselves are not real.

Freund added that the idea of changing one’s race operates differently depending on a person’s racial background and that white people who seek to “transition” to other races can often sidestep the harms of racism.

Kevin Nadal [Email him], a professor of psychology at City University of New York, said: “There is a privilege in being able to change your race or to say that you’re changing your race. There are many people who would be unable to ever change their race. Particularly, Black people in this country would be unable to say all of a sudden ‘I’m white’ and be treated with the same privileges that white people have.”

Certain people of color throughout history have been able to “pass” as white to survive. Walter Francis White, the son of two enslaved people, for example, used his ability to blend in as “white” to champion civil rights for African Americans as the leader of the NAACP. But most people of color are not afforded the same opportunities.

RCTA and transracialism—which came to the forefront because of controversial figures like Rachel Dolezal—have been compared to being transgender. However, psychologists and activists push back against comparisons.

Tiq Milan, a Black transgender activist and writer, said it is a disservice to transgender people to compare the two. Race historically emerged as a social construct to establish a racial hierarchy with the white race at the top, whereas variances in gender identity have existed for thousands of years, he said.

“When it comes to who we are as racialized people, it is how we present to the world, but it’s also how people treat you,” Milan said. “It’s not just putting on the hair and the makeup and talking and walking [in] a kind of way. That is fetishizing, and it’s objectifying, and it reduces the beautiful and complicated cultures of people of color.” …

Subliminals, which are audio files or videos intended to evoke certain outcomes, such as growing taller or achieving good grades, exploded in popularity during the pandemic, Cohen said. They emerged as part of a larger trend in which people hope to manifest changes and bend reality to achieve certain goals, similar to meditation, he said.

Our culture is getting more dominated by girlish wishes and worries.

…Subliminals that aim to make someone more East Asian can also inadvertently use antiquated, erroneous stereotypes. One subliminal, which has been viewed over 200,000 times, says watching it will give a viewer a “mongoloid skull”—an outdated and harmful anthropological category, according to a 2019 statement by the American Association of Biological Anthropologists. Another subliminal, viewed over 100,000 times, claims to be able to give a viewer a “flat face.”

However, concerns about the problematic implications of changing their race seem to have fallen largely on stubborn ears. Addressing the criticisms of racism, Alisa said those who practice RCTA are not harming anyone: “We only live once, so I think we should do everything we want to do in life, even if others think it’s not OK or you can’t achieve it.”