Racialization beyond bloodThe classification of people based on their personal characteristics is a tool used to categorize these people into different groups. However, when these groups are created, it allows for a hierarchical system in which one group appears to outperform another. This happens when we use race as a classification system. The manufactured and socially constructed idea of ​​race leads to the inevitable superiority of one race over another. Racial groupings are historically due to the amount of blood a person has from a particular racial group. Exploring the use of blood to label people for the purpose of racialization lends itself to a deeper examination of why this method is used and who it benefits. Through processes of racialization, power is given and taken away based on man-made classifications that can be subverted through the use of one's own personal identity. Specifically when it comes to African Americans in the United States, the one drop of blood rule seems to dominate the world. classification of a person's race. This was constructed using government census data and instructions given to census takers. At the end of the 19th century, investigators were asked to “take particular care to distinguish between blacks, mulattoes, quadroons and octoroons” (Nobles 2000: 188). Each of these distinct categories was broken down based on the amount of black blood these people contained. The very basis of this simplification of race creates a hierarchy from white to black, documenting each level along the way. By 1930, this rhetoric was completely changed to use the term "Negro", saying they should be marked as such in the census "no matter how... middle of paper... his Negro soul." in a flood of white Americanism, because he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world” (1903: 9). Both aspects of himself create his racial identity. In both of the aforementioned examples of using blood to create distinct racial groups, it completely erases part of a person's identity. Du Bois comments on how every part of himself has something to offer the world. Every aspect of culture, genealogy, and experience contributes to the makeup of a person and the way they perceive the world. The assignment and definition of people creates a control loop in which all members of the minority culture are deprived of power, even the power to define who they are. Beyond blood in the construction of race, identity formation paralyzes racial hierarchies by allowing an individual to identify with multiple racial groups based on a myriad of factors..