 Appiah has since modified his skepticism in such a way that softens the eliminitivist element of his position. Appiah has come to argue for racial nominalism by admitting the importance of “human folk races,” namely, that they are forms of social identity that do in fact exist (2006, 367). The way in which they are social identities, however, is a problem because we treat them as if there were some biological underpinning to them (2006, 367). The folk theory of race, then, is false because it is based on mistaken beliefs, yet it is nonetheless true that we continue to categorize people along its lines. Appiah’s nominalist view of race aims to reveal how these social identities work by analyzing the labels we use for them. According to Appiah there are three ways that we categorize using folk racial labels: ascription, identification, and treatment, and it takes all three for a given label to be a functioning social identity (2006, 368–370). As a result, we come to live as these identities and look to them as a central resource for constructing our lives. Furthermore, norms of identification and authenticity arise around them (2006, 372). Since there is no biological story that can be told to ground these labels then race is not real (2006, 372). For a critique of Appiah’s modified view that focuses on Appiah (1996) see Ronald R. Sundstrom (2002).