Dr. Melissa has a great post on "Race Relations on the Blogosphere." My favorite idea in her post is:
I think Dr. Melissa has a point.
As an aside, it irritates the heck out of me when a mixed race person is referred to as "black". I've always respected Tiger Woods because he refuses to be pigeon-holed racially. In America these days, a lot of mixing goes on. Are half-white, half-hispanic people Mexican? It's insulting. It's meant to divide.
I think Dr. Melissa has a point.
posted by Helen at 8:26 AM
29 Comments:
She makes a good point. Historically in New Orleans, elaborate titles and distinctions were made between octaroon and quadroons etc. These were people of mixed European and African ancestry. I believe there were even balls that white gentry would attend with their mixed race mistresses. Yuck, (in terms of the exploitation,) but a very interesting contrast to how races are conflated these days.
One of my teenage client's refers to mixed race peers as "mutts." It is heartbreaking to me, as someone who supports positive racial identity and equality, to see both the conflation and the disparaging. My wife is white, and when asked her background says "French and German." Although I am adopted, I culturally identify with my parents and I being Scots-Irish.
Because of the horrid aspects of slavery here in America, it is difficult for African Americans to identify themselves as West African, or Shinka, or Zulu. Again on the other hand, we have a history of the North and South arguing on what percentage of African heritage made you "black" with the two sides taking what seems at first as unusual stances until you follow the money and realize it was a power grab.
I guess these ramblings are a sad admission that racial identity is still problematic in America, a century after slavery and years since Jim Crow. And for that, I am sad.
Trey
I, too, have always respected Tiger Woods for not making an issue out of his Korean heritage. ;-)
In a sense it's self-contradictory, but to get beyond racism, racial stereotypes, etc. we have to totally disregard a person's race. This is why many of the "equal opportunity" programs haven't worked. The programs focus on race.
I think the Halle Berry situation is interesting. She makes no bones about it . . . she is black. THE FIRST BLACK ACTRESS TO WIN THE BEST ACTRESS OSCAR. But, only her father was black. Her mother was white.
There are several things going on here.
One is the natural and self-serving tendency to want to build and preserve a constituency, so you find black people insisting that you owe the "community" allegiance if you have even a little black ancestry.
Also you hear black people disgustingly citing Jim Crow "one drop rule" as if that is supposed to shut your wicked, wicked, wicked white mouth.
Tewy, you are right about the difficulty in identifying an ancestral base in Africa, though in fact most African-Americans ' ancestors came form the Yoruba-speaking region, apparently, but the point is that in fact African-American as an ethnicity is a product of living in America and the blending of people from all over Africa. So one woman I know says faltly that Barack Obama is not black, and by that she means he does not belong to that American ethnicity, and she is factually correct.
Ethnicites arise out of blending all the time. This is true for Scots and Englsih, and for the Irish too, for that matter. Sometimes they make up myths about descending from one lone ancestor. One example is Abraham.
People in Caliofornia had sorted out a nice system centuries ago. Everyone was of mixed ancestry, and was bi and trilingual - MOm amd Dad spoke Maidu, let's say; grandma spoke Washo and the other gandma might be Plains Miwok. Communities had the equivlaent of confirmation classes. At some point in adolescence, kids decided which school to attned, and which ethniciity to align with. They learned the correct grammar and vocabulary, not he patois they might have heard among thier various relatives, and the forms of common stories propper to that group. And then went back and got along with everyone.
dadvocate - minor correction here. Tiger Woods' mom is Thai, not Korean
Which means that Tiger is actually more of an Asian-American than an African-American, since his father's side of the family includes Irish and American Indians in it.
I wonder how the racial bean-counters at the Census would classify him.
I think the Halle Berry situation is interesting. She makes no bones about it . . . she is black. THE FIRST BLACK ACTRESS TO WIN THE BEST ACTRESS OSCAR. But, only her father was black. Her mother was white.
Another example is Catherine Zeta-Jones, who has made a career out of playing Hispanic women but whose father is from Wales, UK (IIRC).
But hey, whatever gets you that little statue...
My kids are Irish/African/Chinese/Mestizo. I taught them that they are American, but I have heard them answer the questions "What are you?" by saying "Heinz 57".
dad is an Indian Brahmin Hindu, mom is part German Jewish and Indian Brahmin, I was born in Stockholm, and raised in Australia, Davis, CA, India and a year in the UAE. Now I am a Mormon. What does i t make me? Jewish? Indian? Hindu? German? Mormon? And given my accent, people think I am Irish or SouthAfrican!!! I wonder how the bean-counters in the affirmative-action departments in Universities would classify me. I wonder if I would be considered a minority, or, "oppressed" enough for them to give me a free-ride to Law School or to a MBA program?
ronin1516 - You are correct. Guess I should have looked that up. Don't know where I got Korean.
Tiger is a good role model for all kids. As long as, they realize they probably never be able to play golf like him.
Thank you Dr. Helen for linking to me.
It will be a great day in America when divisions based on skin color no longer exist. I hope the blending of the races will accelerate that reality.
When I fill out a form that wants me to racially categorize myself I write:
Viking-American
Wonder if the census folks got a chuckle out of that?
When a form has a space for race, as they all used to back in the '60s, I always identify my race as being "human". Based on the mountainous region in southern Russia from which my father's family came I suppose it would be proper to identify me as being Caucasian.
The issue of race or ethnicity is usually one of some limited romantic identification with some personality or cognitive characteristics. 'Race' when it occurs as a political issue is like the 1 year old waking in the night, screaming, and most of us won't miss it when 'race' sleeps through the night. The GEICO 'cave-man' ads, for example, play to that feeling.
If you live in a major city, the melting pot has taken hold. You can look at many people and not have a clue to what racial mixture they are.
When somebody asks my race, I tell them I don't know. I don't have pictures of my ancestors...
Clinton wrote: "Its the same liberal Marxist Socialist crowd who even now call themselves conservative while they say they can't wait to vote for someone of ethnicity for president...not based on wether they are qualified for the job but based on the right timing."
I think that it is more complex than you state. If Harold Ford Jr wins the Senate here in Tennessee, I will be disappointed because I voted for his conservative opponent, but I will indeed be proud that my Southern State can elect a black person to the Senate. The good news is about opportunity for everyone, and the success of one man of color will hopefully inspire others.
Same for someone like Tiger Woods. He is multiracial, and golf was for a long time a white man's game. Now I am a white man, and a conservative, but I know that disenfranchised and underincluded people are bad for the country and just plain wrong. So I too am happy when people from minority backgrounds excell. It smells like progress.
Trey
The last pic I saw of Ford had lighting such that he looked like a tanned white guy except for the nose.
I once read an opinion by Amyre Makupson, a former anchor on Detroit local news. She was unbelievably harsh, saying that as far as she was concerned, people should choose one race to "be" regardless of a more-complex ethnic background. She said she's black, period. (Which was the first I'd heard; nothing obvious in her appearance pointed that way.)
I knew a brother and sister in college who were children of a Chinese father and Polish mother. The daughter looked just like her mother, even though the daughter had clear Asian features her mother lacked. The son had long, straight black hair and was so often assumed to be native American he just picked a tribe. Both objected strenuously to being pigeonholed as "Asian," as if their mother didn't matter.
True, true - but sad too.
I grew up i the most racially unstressed group of people I've yet met.And most of us are still quite close.We invented the term P.O.N.D;meaning "Partially of Negro Descent".Sadlt,it never caught on.
OK, Harold Ford is multi-racial. I concede the point. So if he wins I will be sad because I voted for his more conservative opponent but proud that a multi-racial person was elected to the senate in Tennessee. What is the diff?
As for defending the white race, if such a thing were prudent or important, I do not think it would be necessary. We are doing OK. That is one white man's opinion.
Trey
Is there anybody left on the planet who can claim pure ancestry from a single racial group? Maybe a few in remote corners, but the great majority of us are of mixed race and the sooner we realise it the better. It is good to be proud of your ancestry but it doesn't make you one iota of a better person than your neighbour.
And if race does not constitute any valid reason for dividing people, neither should colour, which is an even more vague and pointless method of doing so. I have seen a few African people whose colour I could accurately describe as black, but nobody I could properly describe as white - there are albinos but I have never met one. Are they truly white?
I am officially classified as white, but when I hold my hand against a sheet of paper that is unquestionably white, I see a huge difference. I am nowhere near white. In fact I am variegated - my skin has several shades of pink merging with several shades of red and brown and even blue/purple where a vein is near the surface. In summer when I have spent too long in the sun I turn red then brown, then I peel and slowly turn back to variegated pink/red/brown. People whose colour is very similar to mine call themselves black, implying that they are totally opposite to me, as I am supposed to be white. How stupid and farcical.
Just treat everyone the same, reward and promote on merit and punish on the basis of what people do, not who they are. You won't then need these artificial distinctions that serve no useful purpose and will only ever keep the human race backward and divided.
My take on the racial hyphenated American stuff is that it's the extension of racial politics and group identity fetishists. The very same folks who say that we must call others by their racially designated group label commonly refer to those with European heritage as "whites", which usually corresponds to the unspoken negative connotation of "whites" being the oppressors and not worthy of any claim to any other heritage beyond McDonalds hamburgers, Disneyland and Walmart. Oh yes don't forget slavery. It's all whiteys fault.
To answer the question, "How do the beancounters at the Census classify so-and-so," the answer is they don't. Individuals get to classify themselves and in my experience, they classify themselves whatever color suits their purpose at the time. If they need to show minority status, they choose their more minority part of their heritage. If not, they go with the more "majority" part of their genetic makeup. As a mixed person myself, I've done it too. For scholarships, I'm Asian-Pacific Islander. For more pedestrian purposes, I'm just white. Who's gonna check up on me? No one, lest they be accused of racism. Which points up, once again, how silly and ineffective affirmative action and diversity measures are. I'm as mainstream conservative as they come - identifying strongly WASPish, yet I have been chosen for committees simply because I can identify as Asian. Fulfilling the quotas and satisfying "diversity" don'tcha know. Crazy.
"Black" is not a race, it is a politically-inspired category or grouping. And race isn't the issue anyway. The real issue today is special group privilege in all its clever forms, and the conversion of these "special" groups into voting blocs.
Uh, Tiger's mom is Thai and I believe his dad may even be a tiny bit Asian too...but he has no Korean heritage.
Harold Fords parents are both black. He comes from an upper crust black family, which more often than not are on the fairer side of things. The usage of the term black in the United States to identify one who is a member of the black racial/ethnic group does not denote that one must literally be the color black.
While highly common sense, this must be stated on occasion to the detriment of more knowledgable people and generally people outside of the black community.
One who is a member of the black racial/ethnic group in the United States can be of any color, ranging from white to black. The admixture of European DNA in black Americans is something on the order of 20-25 percent on average, not to mention the signifcant amount of Amerindian admixture in the population, which could be even higher.
Therefore, one who has two black parents (a la rep. Ford) can easily be fairer in complexion and appearance than someone who is biracial (like Sen. Obama).
This then, is one of many reasons why biracial people are labeled black (who, as explained above are on average three races).
As another example, Vanessa Williams, who is quite fair with naturally dark blonde/light brown hair and blue eyes has two black parents, while Halle Berry has a white mother but more Africanized features and is darker.
I wonder how the human-bean counters at the Census will classify my grandson Matt and his little sisters. I'm white with a little bit of (American)Indian, my husband is black and Indian, and our daughter Beth, Matt's mother, looks Indian to a "T". Matt and his sisters' Dad, however, is of Scottish descent.
Sooo... Matt has blonde hair, green eyes, and milk white skin. His little sisters have big dark eyes, dark wavy hair, golden skin, and look Spanish! They are beautiful kids, and boy, does our family confuse people when we all go out together, lol!
The one drop rule is no longer the reason the majority of mixed race or light skinned black people call themselves black. The reason is because of 1) political power, we're stronger if we stand as a group and 2) there is still too much of a taboo against being black. When you identify yourself as something other than black you are effectively saying, "Don't identify me with them. Anybody,but them."
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