An Alternate Source of Today's Racism?

Although the majority of people in this world would prefer race to be a nonissue, race is still remarkably apparent in society. But one can question if the persons with skin of color do not impulsively set themselves apart from those of no color, as opposed to the other way around. Factually, yes, both of these theories are forms of racism, but this idea still raises the question of the origin of racism in today’s world. Do people of race instinctively create an “Africanist persona”(Morrison 17) to predominately identify themselves with? In Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven, I found it interesting that Heather Lelache, the only character in the novel who is dark-skinned or “black”, is the first character to make the physical characteristic of skin color at all relevant. Although Orr brings up the trait in his initial description of Lelache, the first time her skin color is discussed in terms of her personality is in her monologue concerning her parents.
“But I’ll tell you, what really gets me is, I can’t decide which color I am. I mean, my father was a black, a real black – oh, he has some white blood, but he was black – and my mother was a white, and I’m neither one. See, my father really hated my mother because she was white. But he also loved her. But I think she loved his being black much more than she loved him. Well, where does that leave me? I never have figured it out” (Le Guin 104).
She speaks of race in such objective terms that she boils the relationship between her parents down to the color of their skin. Granted, Lelache was most likely raised with this mentality, but even after her parents have been deceased for years, it is clear that Lelache still holds her skin color very much accountable for who she is and isn’t. If Lelache didn’t view the subject of her skin color as a major relevancy to who she is, she would not have gone into so much detail about her racial roots in front of a man she barely knew. Clearly, she believes that the explanation of her origin is a key for other people to understand her as a person. In Playing in the Dark, Toni Morrison further emphasizes this point by explaining her experience of reading in the mind set of a writer: “The fabrication of an Africanist persona is reflexive; an extraordinary meditation on the self; a powerful exploration of the fears and desires that reside in the writerly conscious” (Morrison 17). African Americans are rooted with the inclination toward reflecting on their Africanist selves. According to Toni Morrison, to have the notion that skin color has a relevancy to one’s personality is an impulse of the colored population, as a whole. No matter if the person in question was raised with this mentality, or if society imprinted it on him, the inclination to having “an Africanist persona” is manifest. Is this idea of African Americans inventing a persona specifically concerning their African roots relevant? Could this idea exhibited in both The Lathe of Heaven and Playing in the Dark be a significant factor of racism?