Complicated stuff - I'm not sure how much good ethnocentric thinking about the world is helping. The consistent focus on race to resolve the problem of race is anathema to the solution. Identity politics has front and centred an absolutely batshit approach to how people are perceived and (perhaps more crucially) how they see themselves across many different spheres of life.

This consistent desire to fight the flames of hatred using a rhetorical flamethrower is setting everyone back on any progress because of the circular arguments the entire things engenders. The solution, as far as I can see is to eschew identity altogether and focus on what people say (that's why I'm a Penguin).

The only valid answer to the question posed in your title should be 'why does it matter?'' As an aside you'd probably enjoy this article I wrote a long old while ago now. https://medium.com/p/95b414ea8d5a