Mixed Race?

[stromboli]

I made a joke in the Shoutbox about being mixed race- white and whiter. Probaly would be viewed as racist by some. What triggered that was a website about "Celebrities you didn't know were black!!" Most of whom I knew were mixed race, not black. Mariah Carey, Derek Jeter, Rosario Dawson, etc. I think it strange that we still identify racially as people of color those of mixed race. The leading example being our president, of course. All the birther stupidity that raged because his father was a black man who gave him an African last name is an egregious example of the mindset that exist in the US.

I grew up with friends that were Navajo and Ute, adopted by Mormon families- a Book of Mormon thingy about them turning white and delightsome, or whatever; never happened. The people I knew were essentially Native American and not identified as mixed race, but I'm aware of the possibility that there might've been a white guy in the woodpile, so to speak.  I was also involved with black powder/mountain man culture and have been to several rendezvous, where tribal dancers perform for money. By law, you have to be at least 1/4 Native American to be considered as such. Looking at them now, you'd be hard pressed to pick out an Indian from the white folk, so blended have they become. Two people of note, Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Norris, both have some Cherokee blood; both from Oklahoma. And they are white as I am, near as I can tell.

The whole race thing is nothing short of preposterous. There are so many people of mixed race now that you would be hard pressed to pick out a pure white guy or pure black guy from any blended crowd; go to California or Hawaii and see so many people that are an admixture of Asian, Indian, Hispanic and Polynesian and try to figure out their ancestry. Obviously there are still places where black people congregate and identify as black culturally, but even they have a considerable amount of white blood in their genes.

The LDS church was forced to reconsider blacks holding the priesthood for a few reasons, but high among them was the Brazilian mission, which in 1978 was their biggest. It was kind of hard to get converts who were a mixture of Portuguese, black, Brazilian Indian and whatever. Imagine doing the genealogy on that mix. The church was forced to make a decision, and the only thing that would move them forward was allowing blacks to have the priesthood.

The same situation to greater or lesser extent exists in general society everywhere. In England and elsewhere, slaves and immigrants over time have mixed with native whites and we now have Scandinavians with dark features. In Russia, which has been a melting pot for centuries, there are more than 20 ethnic groups identified; Mongol, Slav, Indigenous Asian Indians, Chinese variants and so on.

Racial identification has become an anachronism. Just like religion, we need to move past that and learn to identify by some other means- culturally, nationally, whatever; I don't know. But to identify a person as mixed race or any other grouping seems kind of silly to me.

[Shiranu]

I have never liked the concept of "race", but that is mostly because I was highly insulted every time I was called "white". And what does white even tell you? White extends from Portugal to Germany, England, up into Sweden, then over into Russia, down into Armenia, Turkey, Israel, Syria... Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Africa... calling someone "White" is about the most vague description you could possibly give someone. What does it matter what someone's skin looks like, it's the culture they are from and who their ancestors were that is important.

[Desdinova]

Thousands of years from now, if we survive, and open cultures thrive, we should all be roughly the same color.  Kinda like a mocha latte.

[Shiranu]

Thousands of years from now, if we survive, and open cultures thrive, we should all be roughly the same color.  Kinda like a mocha latte.

Yeah, from the predictions of even 250 years from now... the averag American is going to have a beautiful complexion. Kinda Mexican-ish.

[Hydra009]

I have never liked the concept of "race", but that is mostly because I was highly insulted every time I was called "white". And what does white even tell you? White extends from Portugal to Germany, England, up into Sweden, then over into Russia, down into Armenia, Turkey, Israel, Syria... Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Africa... calling someone "White" is about the most vague description you could possibly give someone. What does it matter what someone's skin looks like, it's the culture they are from and who their ancestors were that is important.

What's really weird about "white" is that it's pretty much all of Europe except Spain and Portugal.  Those people are "hispanic" not white, which always seemed like a pretty arbitrary distinction to me.

[Desdinova]

I wish my complexion was more brown instead of pasty-white with red blotches.  The sun is my enemy.

[Poison Tree]

Last week my dad made a joke about god being a black woman and some (other) white man replied "god doesn't have an ethnicity; he is white". Too many white people view themselves not as a race or culture but as "normal". Everyone else, they think, has a race or culture which prevents them from being white.

[trdsf]

'Mixed race' is a bad term anyway; it tries to divide our one human species along purely external lines.  I've had well-meaning (white) people ask about where I live (and blissfully unaware of how racist they sound), "Isn't that a mostly black neighborhood?"

To which I can only respond, "No, it's an all-human neighborhood.  Unless there's a Martian there that I'm unaware of."

That said, if I was any whiter, I'd be translucent (5/8 Polish, 1/8 Ukrainian, 1/4 mixed British Isles).

[Munch]

Since as a species we can fuck and have babies of mixed skin color it means nature obviously doesn't care about the moronic exclusion racists want to make up.

[Shiranu]

I've had well-meaning (white) people ask about where I live (and blissfully unaware of how racist they sound), "Isn't that a mostly black neighborhood?"

To be fair, I think that is a far more socio-economic-ist than racist train of thought. You would get the same question if you lived in the "white trash" part of town, I know I did.

I am pretty dark for my ancestry... about 1/3 German, 1/3 Italian and the rest a mix of Scottish/Jewish/Greek/Spaniard. Got mostly the Italian skin and hair.

[Solitary]

When I was younger I was very dark from being in the sun all the time swimming, Everyone asked me if I was half black, it was funny because I'm actually 1/8 Cherokee and 1/8 Choctaw, and 1/2 white. When I  was young there were three races only, the black race, the white race, and yellow race. Where the brown race and  red race came from I have no idea. When people saw me they had no idea I was white, unless I had a Mohawk, then I looked like Studi the actor. This whole thing of race is ridiculous to me. By the way, this girl is a full blooded Native American. Solitary

[Shiranu]

When I was younger I was very dark from being in the sun all the time swimming, Everyone asked me if I was half black, it was funny because I'm actually 1/8 Cherokee and 1/8 Choctaw, and 1/2 white. When I  was young there were three races only, the black race, the white race, and yellow race. Where the brown race and  red race came from I have no idea. When people saw me they had no idea I was white, unless I had a Mohawk, then I looked like Studi the actor. This whole thing of race is ridiculous to me. By the way, this girl is a full blooded Native American. Solitary

I can see where the Europeans got confused, I would have assumed she was Indian as well.

While we are talking of skin colour, the girl's is about my summer tone of skin.



Slight bias, but to me that is about the perfect shade of brown :P.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Fuck you honkeys..I have at least one drop of white blood in me.. That makes me amerkin..

[stromboli]

I don't know what the big deal is. My kids are mixed race. I am 99.9% Northern European, according to 23andme, and my wife is 100% Han Chinese. These are my awesome bi-racial kids.

Yeah, awesome kids. This is the way all America should look. Solve a whole lot of problems if the concept of race no longer had any meaning. Btw, I live in an area with an admixture of Hispanic and white and whatever, because many people who served-worked at Hill AFB in Ogden have settled here for many years. At least in this part of Utah, race isn't an issue. But don't stray into rural Utah. Bad news.

[GrinningYMIR]

I'm German, german, German, English, Scottish and native American, I'm white as white can be XD

Anglo-Saxon, Aryan if you're feeling dramatic, and 19th century.

We are all one race/species just with different skin tones, not too much different from is fundamentally except for cultural stuff


Though some of those dark skinned girls are beauties *beams*