"There are, I think, three crucial lessons to be learned from these cases. First, that identities are complex and multiple and grow out of a history of changing responses to economic, political, and cultural forces, almost always in opposition to other identities. Second, that they flourish despite what I earlier called our "misrecognition' of their origins; despite, that is, their roots in myths and in lies. And third, that there is, in consequence, no large place for reason in the construction--as opposed to the study and the management--of identities."

- kwame anthony appiah, in my father's house