Showing posts with label mixed race children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mixed race children. Show all posts

Thursday, May 24, 2012

More Minorities, Is That Really The Case?


In the past week or so there has been tons of articles about the racial make-up in America changing.  I don't know what other stories have had such a wide array of coverage by such a wide array of media outlets.  When I see things like this I think of how ridiculous it all is.  This is for a number of reasons.  The ones most pertinent are race is strictly a social concept, people will eventually evolve to being the color their environment dictates, personality notwithstanding, and why on earth is the one drop rule still applying.
Breakdown

Race is strictly a social concept, and it’s a bad one.  One that was developed for the purpose of creating a subservient class in what was perceived as the most efficient fashion.  It is a pattern that has historically always shown up because of our seeming inability to associate people that have even the minuet amount of difference from us as people like us.  Ask any blonde, brunette, or redhead.  Stereotypes exist for everything from eye color, height to shoe size. It is no shock that skin color is no different. 

Thought Lynch was a coincidence?
The biggest issue with this however is the end characterization of people with different skin colors.  No one believes that blondes are lazy and more prone to crime.  No one has lovingly instilled that brunette's are dirty and should not be trusted with meaningful careers or power. These damning assumptions are cast on skin color and persist because we as adults won't take responsibility for being part of the problem and teaching our children, peers, and family otherwise by our own actions.  Instead we laugh at racist jokes that aren't funny.  We agree with family by not bringing that person of another race home to meet.  We let the inaction in our lives carry racism into new generations so that the lessons of Willie Lynch are never forgotten. (Willie Lynch Speech) While it has been proven that the accounts of said Lynch are fictitious, the parable for American life is relatively valid when trying to understand the mentality that still persists in America. If you don't know the story, I don't have the time to tell you.  You should start your change into an active participant of the future of this society by looking him up and understanding the basis of this characterization, acknowledging the aspects of it that still exist.

The truth is in a few hundred years all generations in this continent would began to assume another shade anyway.  Its called evolution and for the religious zealots that can't understand that it exists and life isn't unchanging religious magic I ask that you recite the Serenity prayer to yourself and excuse yourself from this blog. Pay special attention to the part that asks God to let you accept the things you cannot change.  Evolution is a thing that cannot change because it IS change. 

Babies Don't See It
I find it amazing that because of the Bible it seems that some people cannot get around certain ideas.  I find it ironic because that strikes me as love of a false idol.  Bear with me for a moment.  No one has ever promised us anything in life accept growth, change, and death.  That is all.  Yet people need to believe so very much in a text that claims to recite the word of God, sometimes in spite of what life is showing them.

I feel like I have a very evolved relationship with God.  I do believe which is why I believe that the complexity of life cannot be summed up in a book.  I think this book gives us tales of other human beings and how they fell due to lust, vanity, envy, pride and many other human vices.  I consider these stories warnings and parables for what life could put us through penned by people who wanted to make sure that we as the next phase of humanity could learn from their mistakes.  And through this the wisest of us may develop a hint of an understanding of what God's plan is for us.  If you ask a theologian, and I have, they will relate something similar. 

So Many Religions
As a woman of mixed religious thoughts and ideas I have searched this earth for even a hint of what the Father needs and wants of me.  I have researched ancient religions and modern ones.  I have studied the tenets of Buddhism, the Tao, Shinto, the Koran, the Torah. I have read every book of the Bible as best I could, searched for lost versions, original translations from the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves, Calvinism, Puritans, even the Shakers.  I have tried to decipher ancient Egyptian, Sumerian.  I have delved into Shamanism, witchcraft and just about everything else short of Satanism.  And I see the same pattern in them all.  One book, one set of rules that all claim the same thing.  We have all the answers.  This tells me plain as day, no one does.  But as humans we must have faith in something and everyone has the right to believe what they believe.  What they don't have the right to do is try to make everyone else believe it too.

In light of this I propose another alternative.  I propose a deity that is capable of such advanced thought that evolution was always a part of the design. I propose that our sight is so limited that we cannot phantom what magnetism, gravity, the primordial forces of this Universe are actually capable of or what they even are. That we cannot see the big picture no matter how hard we look.  We have functions in our bodies that only the highest of evolved earthbound entities have found a way to master.  The rest of us accept our involuntary responses and our weakness as simple, limited, finite beasts.  And that is the only true honor any of us can give the glory of God, living the life He gave us as He leads us.  Dropping arrogance, judgment, and cruelty.  What Christians claim as being of that faith to embody.

Stepping off my religious soapbox I confront the silliest of the whole thing.  Its' this idea that the race of being white is somehow defaulted to impurity if a single other 'race' is mixed with it.  It’s this idea that as soon as a 'nonwhite' gene pool is introduced to a white one all of a sudden the person resulting cannot in any form or fashion be considered white.  I find this the stupidest because I can't tell you how many times a 'white' person has looked at me and claimed to be (insert fraction here) of Cherokee, or Navajo, or some other none European culture YET still claims to be white. Because by aforementioned rules, they should not be. However, if the mixture is with an exceedingly undesirable (read not ostracized from the American Dream in a reservation fashion) race such as Latino, Chicano, Hispanic, Black, Caribbean (tropical black), Aboriginal (Australian black), or (insert various Polynesian, Asian mixes here including Maori and Inuit), then they are then 'spoiled' and apart of that undesirable race grouping.  If white were so damned superior you would think it would trump the other, yet not so much. 
So. . .

The truth is children from these unions are actually both because they carry the genes of BOTH parents.  One is not superior in DNA matching.  DNA just sees dominant and recessive strands and it matches them together to create new and more amazing patterns.  The more you give it to work with the more amazing pattern it creates.  Another marvel of creation we are not evolved enough to understand.  The simple fact is this; God has already done the math.  There is a reason why you don't see certain crossbreeds out in the world.  Think about it.  You really believe God would be so forgetful as to not put one in place for us if certain creatures shouldn't exist.  The last I checked, creatures that shouldn't exist. . .DON'T!  It is the sincerest form of heresy and blasphemy to damn what God has deemed to live.

So that's my say.  Please pick up one of my lovely multicultural, multiracial, usually interracial romance novels and celebrate love.  If we all do it together maybe we can get the world ready to accept some of these amazing new patterns God is creating in America.





Thought Lynch was a Coincidence? Courtesy of http://www.finalcall.com/artman/uploads/1/willie-lynch_gr1_1.jpg


Monday, December 19, 2011

What your parents can’t tell you about interracial dating


The truth is interracial dating is a lot more like all other forms of dating than some people would like to admit.  And maintaining an interracial relationship is still about the same things that none interracial dating is about.  Two people deciding if they can commit to each other.  Everything else is media driven hype.  Personally I’m not completely for or against interracial relationships, gay relationships, or hetero relationships between members of the same ‘race’.  I am on the side of love and love being able to infuse tolerance in all relationships regardless of the over reaching societal implications to forming a relationship. 

I find it interesting that everyone is willing to admit that interracial relationships suffer more problems than a same race relationship.  The fascinating part is all the reasons that are stated as to why that is that have nothing to do with the REAL reason why.  During this litany of reasons people will list things like suffering from the discrimination of others and what you will put your poor children through.

Stats
Ask someone why they are against interracial relationships and they will probably tell you all the things ‘other’ people will put you through.  Seeing as most of these people offering this helpful advice have usually not been in interracial relationships I find myself believing that they are telling you what they have put other people through.  Trust me, once you are in only one interracial relationship the knowledge carried away makes the experience worth it. Only someone who has not had a true caring relationship with someone of another race can hold on to the idea that these should not be seen out.  And usually in their descriptors for the ills of interracial relationships they refuse to even admit the real reason.  There is only one, ignorance.  Ignorance breeds hate, confusion, lies and ultimately untested theories of truth.

Family
The truth is that if your family has lived in America for a certain number of years in certain locales you like I have interracial relationships to thank for your current existence.  Therefore I think the lowest and most villainous reason people will ever give you is the aspect that you are somehow hurting potential future children by being in an interracial relationship. This is the lowest form of manipulation because it takes advantage of the idea that people want to put their children in the best possible position to achieve and live a full life.  The truth is only useless people live uninteresting lives that have enabled them to never confront with any adversity.  Without conflict children cannot become strong enough to deal with the pangs of life.  They instead become people who don’t understand how to deal when life deals them a rough hand and they have a hard time recovering.  If nothing else being of a multiracial identity builds perseverance, self- reliance and a need to develop a strong self-identity.

Often enough people who have been in interracial relationships will cite one more thing.  This thing is the way the couple actually relates to race with each other. Because race exists as a social construct the members of the couple will often have ingrained ideas that are a reflection of their thoughts on race.  More often than not the person that is willing to date outside of their race is also the person least willing to deal with the implications of race in the world.  They will often ignore and admonish the other party for being too sensitive while that party will criticize and judge the other for not being sensitive enough.  The bigger issue with this is the fact that both are actually so sensitive to the race issue that they make what other people perceive the entire focus of the relationship.  When actually it should bare as much weight as choosing a place to have dinner. That is where maturity comes in.

I will be the first to admit interracial dating does have issues that same race relationships don’t have.  The number one issue is whether or not the participants are mature enough to deal with a society that isn’t mature enough for open none guilt laden interracial dating.  The most damning and hurtful aspect to this is finding out the truth about the people you love.  Because in the course of even contemplating this as a choice you will learn beyond a shadow of a doubt where the people you love stand.  It doesn’t matter how ‘open’ the bulk of your friends and family are, someone in your immediate life will have a problem with it.  The people involved have to determine from point jump if being with this person is worth the potential drama proposed by others outside of the relationship.  This branches out to friends, co-workers, and casual strangers.  Yes you will notice a difference in how people treat you.  And if that isn’t enough to make you understand how alive and well racism still is then you need to give it a shot just to see.  Take minute and understand the nature of your privilege.

Hands
The issue with race is that it somehow negates something that is always present in relationships. With human beings comes opinions and people will judge whom you are with regardless of what they bring or don’t bring to the table.  People find issues with class, gender, ableism, you name it.  Some people will even complain about television and music preferences.  The bottom line is that no matter who you are with, there is going to be someone in your life who doesn’t really like them or the fact that you are together.  Maturity determines how much you let that dictate who is right for you and who isn’t.  In the end all those other people aren’t there and can’t really determine what is best for you.  Only you can do that.

Race is an insidious thing because it is solely dependent on perception.  Most times as many online ‘identify the race’ simulations prove, you can’t really tell what ‘race’ someone is by their appearance alone.  The human genome project has ventured into a wide array of explanations regarding this and why assumptions about personality, work ethic, or morality cannot be judged by the color of a person’s skin.  All human life on earth right now can be traced to a male and female ancestor in Africa.  This is not theorized or presumed, this is science. This is fact.

We as people have different experiences that have shaped us.  Many of these experiences have racial overtones because of the country that we live in.  We are all shaped by only watching bad racial stereotypes in our media, by accepting casual racism as a fact of life, and by not speaking up when unfair discrimination is taking place.  Every time you look away in the guise of ‘this isn’t a big deal’ is when you let it win.  When you don’t take something seriously that has the potential to hinder another person’s liberties and civil rights then you let it win. Because you aren’t personally exposed to this treatment does not mean it doesn’t exist.  In case you haven’t noticed racial demographics change every day.  When does the day come that you are the one being visited with this treatment that you choose to ignore?  Stop ignoring it, deal with it, and be the change that we all need to see.

Stats courtesy of http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/legacy/68-interior.gif

Family Courtesy of http://www.thegrio.com/assets_c/2010/04/celebs_interracial_marriages_proves_grass_not_greener_on_other_side-thumb-400xauto-8484.jpg

Hands Courtesy of http://multiamerican.scpr.org/files/2011/03/hands-300x423.jpg