kontextmaschine:

so gold works as an universal trade medium because anyone you trade with knows they are in network with someone who is in a network with someone who wants to do a trade in a way finite national-specific mediums don’t work for

so color works as an organizing principle of society cause even if “race isn’t real”, if you can get any given bunch of illiterate randoms and ask “hey, that guy over there in the medium distance, in low light and regardless of how he’s attired - is he white or black?” and have them all reliably come to the same answer, you can do things with that classification

When the NAACP was founded few of the founders would meet a brown paper bag test, they were “black” under the “One Drop Rule” but not visually distinguished, a common literary figure was the “tragic mulatta” who “passed” as white until her heritage was discovered or revealed