How would you know about angry Black wives? You were discarded by a White woman and a Black man. You were adopted by White people.
You are apparently married to your grandmother:
This is not just a biracial guy problem-using Black women as comedic fodder because they aren’t talented otherwise. It’s really a Black male problem. But since Key makes his bread and butter Cooning and race hustling (like DL Hugley) on Comedy Central, I figured I would post this for the hell of it.
I haven’t blogged in a very long time, mostly because I haven’t been inspired. I’ve been drawn to other things. Frankly, race talk gets frustrating. But I will leave this blog up as long as I can. I appreciate the comments. I read them. I think through them. I accept them or I don’t.
Recently a commenter chided me for being “hostile” towards Biracial Tiffany and her “jealous blacks” story because, the commenter said, “Black women ARE jealous. It’s just a fact”. You can see her comment and my response here.
After responding, I decided to fish around Tiffany’s blog for the first time in ages. I’m glad I did. I’m glad my comment to the girl was spot on. I’m glad I trusted my own instincts and experiences and responded truthfully rather than diplomatically. And I’m glad I am encouraging everyone, but particularly Black women, to understand what happens when Black women are silent about the dysfunctions and hypocrisies of biracial women, while you allow them to shape the stories that others hear about you. The post in question is here
While participating in racial voyeurism on BlackHairMedia.com, Biracial Tiffany (who admittedly has little connection with Black people in her offline life-which makes her voyeurism that much more interesting…and sad) came across a discussion about Halle Berry in which some poster stated that she does not believe Halle, or other Bircials are Black, nor should they be identified as such. Halle, the poster believes, should NOT be considered the “Most Beautiful Black Woman”. Makes sense, right? This argument has been made before, even by biracial writers. Basically, should half Black women be the dominant images of Black women we see in media? The simple answer is no. But when a Black woman says it, it’s a big problem for tragic mulattos.
No. Black women must be hateful and jealous. Biracial Tiffany decides that her opinion on the matter is so inflammatory that she best not mention it at all. Her other commenters aren’t as cowardly:
jess2248 says:
no one represents me, but me, and i do not represent other black women. as i said before, as soon as this country can get away from this race and color thing, i think we will all be better off. you have blacks and whites telling biracial people how they can or cannot identify. it’s ridiculous. i hate to hear biracial (non-black with black) being hated on by black or white women, but black especially. it always comes off sounding like envy. and that is just another divisive tactic in my opinion. i don’t hear a lot of it in this blog, but on others it gets really nasty.
Now I’m not trying to be funny. Look at the image above. Does this look like a woman who will EVER have to worry about negotiating her racial identity with white women? LOL-would she dare to try if she could? Exactly. She’s talking about being “hated on”. I will stop right here. The commenter I discussed earlier that said I was hostile to Tiffany claimed Black women are jealous of her hair. This commenter has typical African hair (and nose and lips) but still experiences this gut-wrenching jealousy. How can this be??????
Remember what I said about the complex. If it is not excessive adoration, tragic mulattos will believe it is jealousy.
An even bigger tragedy, Margie said:
And I havete. But I hat the “big” curly kinky hair that black people call “Good hair” and then get mad at me when I repeat them. I’m just discovering the fact that a lot of black women get perms and wigs to try and look like their mulatto counterparts. (ex: Halle Berry. Black Women get weaves to look like Halle Berry and then the media just labels them all black. “This is how to do black women’s hair- no it’s not.
She must not know that Halle wears weaves. And tons of them. She must not know that biracials straighten and relax their hair. Tons of them. Who are they trying to look like??? Take a wild guess. The above comment was said after she went on about her lack of commonality with “the blacks”. Sigh…
The other ones were too stupid to stay on topic and started talking about how music and money makes them less Black. Typical minority racial hierarchy climbing stuff, talking about being the special darky at expensive White schools (and pretending like they just blended in there and had no racial experiences, lmao). No need to cover that stuff here.
Of course Bethenny was the clueless white mom worried for her future tragedy:
Reading that conversation was really annoying to me…which surprised me. I don’t usually take those kinds of comments personally. I’m white and my husband is black…I get so sad when I think about how my children are going to have to hear and deal with conversations like that. Like they’re a science experiment or a food that needs to be labeled. I wish people would get a life. I wish it didn’t have to be a debate. I’m sorry Tiff, I’m just so sad right now for my children. I hope I can raise them to be above all the superficial and negative energy people give out on the topic.
Black women owning their identities and deciding who is “them” and who isn’t, is interpreted by a White woman as “negativity”. Read my post about the origins of the modern biracial movement. It started with women like her.
So to sum up this whole exchange on Tiffany’s blog, if Halle calls herself Black, they’re mad. If Black women say Halle is biracial, they’re mad. if Black women say Halle is Black, they’re mad. Anything a Black woman has to say that is not a loving, uncritical complement…THEY WILL BE MAD.
You may not be allowed to tell other people who they are, but you sure as hell can tell them they ARE NOT LIKE YOU. Everyone has a place in this conversation. Especially if they’re toying with your racial identity.
In this “post racial” climate, Black women can’t win for losing. Do Not Play Their Game. When it comes to your identity, you’re allowed to set your own rules. Tragic mulattos be darned.
This summer has been overwhelming (in a good way, for the most part). I traveled. I formed new friendships. I let go of bad ones. I took time to really look at myself. Not to get sappy, but change really IS beautiful. Even if you haven’t reached your goal, there is beauty in the movement.
I’ve met several AfroBrazilians over the years and they’ve always taught me so much. I must admit, I’ve embarrassed myself with sweeping assumptions about Latin America that they’ve politely corrected. They make me really proud of the work that has been done internationally for civil rights, but also for the transformation of the Black identity in Brazil. I get a sense of ferment there-EXCITEMENT about who they are and what they’re claiming to be. This article really drove that home. Isn’t it funny how, as Brazil makes overt strides towards racial equality, people are choosing to simply identify as Black rather than the 900 label variations for non-White they’ve created to keep a solid racial hierarchy? It’s like people are realizing “the jig is up”.
Just as descendents of Brazil’s runaway slaves are finding their voice – and telling the census takers about it – so too are Brazil’s officially black and indigenous communities swelling as a growing number of Brazilians label themselves “black” or “indigenous” rather than “mulatto” when the census takers come knocking.
“People are no longer scared of identifying themselves or insecure about saying: ‘I’m black, and black is beautiful,’ ” Brazil’s minister for racial equality, Elio Ferreira de Araujo, told the Guardian.
For the first time in Brazilian history, this year’s census will map out the different indigenous languages spoken in Brazil and register the number of same-sex relationships. It will also ask people their “ethnicity” – a thorny issue in a country that has long regarded itself as a racial melting pot and the rainbow nation of the Americas.
Read more here: Brazil’s Census Offers Recognition at Last to Descendants of Runaway Slaves
I am on a much-needed vacay but still around. See ya’ll in a few weeks!
Random story
I’ve been in Europe for a few weeks now. I was on the bus in London yesterday (Oxford Street area to be exact), and the bus driver’s supervisor got on and told him to change the bus route (I guess to avoid some construction ahead). Many people on the bus groaned in frustration-but most eventually calmed. However, a particularly angry Italian passenger babbled loudly in Italian then yelled “Niggers. You’re ruining Europe!”
I kid you not-BOTH men were South Asian of some sort (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh). Everyone looked mortified but nobody said a word.
Another random thought:
Is it just me, or are most Rastafarian men “involved” with white women? I swear I’ve seen at least a dozen thus far.
Anyway, hope you all are having a wonderful summer!
To justify their identity, you should be neither surprised or offended. The White supremacist perspective on “racial realism” expresses the belief that race is a biological and scientific reality and that different races have inherent qualities and capacities that can be measured/predicted accurately along those racial lines. This is why you often hear people like AD Powell say “stand on your own genetic feet”, or Mixed White Advocate author Vanguard say “Hey, can you prove YOU’RE NOT inferior?…like other idiotic multiculturalists you deny scientific reality”. Remember this as you become familiar with their perspectives and goals.
There are actually TWO perspectives on racial realism. According to research conducted by the National Institute of Health, Skin color diversity (and *genetic* diversity) is actually highest among Sub-Saharan Africans. This is important to note because it flies in the face of many assumptions about GENETIC race, and confirms that race is a matter of our social interpretation of our physical world. This is the version of racial realism generally accepted by the scientific community (and anyone familiar enough with different types of people to know that just because you share skin color/appearance with someone doesn’t mean you are similar). Race is real because we interact with each other based on assumptions made from appearance. It is a social reality, not a genetic reality. Two perspectives: one social, one genetic.
It’s funny that people who believe they are making “genetic contributions” to the Black race don’t realize their argument implies that their genetic Blackness (although less visible) “contaminates” the White race, and therefore a racially conscious White society may be right in excluding them. Sounds familiar? This is the scientific premise of the one drop rule. They actually support this logic.
Although they often rely heavily on “scientific” logic to strengthen their argument, this is usually done with strategic omissions of contemporary scientific truth. View the charts below created by Zach/Vanguard (I must commend him for his “passion”):
The second chart is even funnier:
He states the following rationale:
…look at this composite of negro-cauacasian hybrids, negroes from Africa, and caucasians. Note the distinctions in racial phenotype. Color eyes from brown to blue, skin tone from brown to white, thin and medium lips, curly or semi-curly (as opposed to woolly) hair, a protruding nose of moderate or thin width, a rectangular face, unpronounced cheek bones(WHAT? LOL), are all caucasoid or caucasoid derived racial traits. Most are absent in pure negro populations. Now, as you can see, the mixed-race faces span a range of phenotypes between negro and caucasian. Use the perfect averages in the previous slide to evaluate these faces. In the general population, most mixed-race people fall into a range from the midpoint of the “mixed spectrum”, to several faces towards the caucasian pole. This exactly matches their genotypic ancestry, which is approximately 60% caucasian and 40% negro. The near perfect correlation between anthropometry and racial admixture has also been confirmed by scientific studies. Clearly, negro physical traits are neither dominant nor prevailing.
I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw these charts because he claims to be a student of sociology at Western Illinois University. Online universities don’t even play that mess!
Let’s start with his data set: pics of celebrities and google images of Africans, Europeans and Middle Easterners. It does not occur to him for a second, that there is an inherent bias in the selection of Black Americans and Biracial celebrities as data representative of biracial people. It does not occur to him to at least use the same (or nearly the same) number of faces for each category (not that this would strengthen his conclusions by much), and lastly, if your Whiteness is about your European heritage, why are you using pics of White people who aren’t European at all-some of which coming from populations with non-Caucasian/White admixture? White people are assumed more genetic and phenotypic diversity than their beloved science actually states to be true, and Black people are given less. Coincidence? I doubt it. Even his second computer generated chart gives one typographic visual representation of Blackness and Whiteness (mind you the first and second charts don’t actually support each other when it comes to defining visual Blackness and Whiteness).
Anthropometry has been denounced as an accurate measure of race for generations now. But Vanguard and AD are on a mission to resurrect scientific racism-and use it for their “benefit”.
By the way, here is an African American with significant/recent European ancestry (according to African American lives-“19%”):
What does this tell you about someone’s genes & gene expression? What does it tell you about what someone’s appearance can communicate, and what their biological makeup might be?
It’s a crap shoot. Just Ask these folks:
There is no chart you can point to (sorry Zach). There is no computer software you can use (lol) to accurately predict what your child will look like, and what social reality they will have due to their looks. According to Zach, the brother on the right should have more claim to his “European heritage” than his apparently “inferior” twin brother who will be relegated to the dreaded “tar bucket”. These two boys, born at the same time, to the same parents, with the same genetic ancestors.
Can we honestly say that a movement that supports scientific racism is really a movement that wants an egalitarian racial society and personal identification????
This is a good book (and a really easy read). I found Shirlee Hazlip’s interpretation of her family history to be honest yet without judgment. While working on an upcoming post I immediately thought of this book. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the socio-political motives of an embittered few, but Hazlip’s book reminds us that people’s lives are complex. Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter:
…I was even more confused when my mother told me that she was not with her father, or her brothers and sister, because she was “too brown.” My mother was not brown; she was light. I knew that this missing grandfather did not care that I liked to read and was a straight-A student. I knew that he did not know that my mother alternately loved and hated him, and wished she could visit with him. I knew that he did not know how she cried for and cursed him with equal passion.
No matter how beautiful the autumn, its onset signaled the beginning of a seasonal sadness for my mother. Her melancholy would deepen as Christmas approached. Poignantly she spoke of her feelings. I remember feeling helplessly protective of her as she talked of childhood holiday wishes unfulfilled.
For us there were luxurious, indulgent Christmases always at home. We received hundreds of Christmas cards from church members and scores of pies and cakes. Each year, my father would buy a tall Douglas fir tree that he hung with ornaments and lights. Our job was to hand him the icicles, strand by strand. When he finished, he would step back, ask one of us to turn on the lights, and admire his handiwork. Then, invariably, he would begin to hum the “Hallelujah Chorus.”
During the succeeding nights, either he or Jewelle would play the piano and we’d all sing Christmas carols in the living room. Brother could not carry a tune, so his job was to pull my hair or breathe on Jewelle’s neck. At the edge of the group, my mother sang shyly, holding Pattee on her hip or clinging to her hand. Sometimes my Uncle Percy came from New York. He and my father would sing “O Holy Night” and “Ave Maria” together as they had when they were boys. Then we all sang together, Percy directing with a thumping foot or a waving hand.
On Christmas morning, there was always a roomful of toys, clothes and books. After we opened the presents, my father would go out to visit the members of the church, to bring them his personal greetings and to accept their gifts. Every year we would ask my mother why he could not stay at home and enjoy the day like other fathers. We knew the answer, of course. When he came home, he was usually several hundred dollars richer.
Most of us have yearnings and longings for the holidays of times past. My mother never had anything for which to yearn.
I don’t have much time today so I will return to this (and other stuff) later in the week. In my FAQ section I specifically addressed why I believed the creation of this space was necessary. One of the reasons:
*Tons of loaded racial subtext. In much of the discourse, even when the intention is to be race-neutral, the implicated meanings are often times anti-Black and racist.
I was once asked how I could “tell” if the anti-Black/racist subtext was intentional. “Maybe they just don’t realize it. How could someone multiracial be racist?”
Well anonymous questioner, here it is. Directly from the mouth of MixedWhite Advocate.com author “Vanguard”. For those of you well versed in biology, sociology, and basic reasoning-brace yourselves for what the American racial system can do to a mulatto’s psyche:
At tragic:
“As I anticipated, his next post falls right into the “it’s black people’s fault” trap (with a quote from Sarah Jane herself-AD Powell). Tje amount of reliance on pseudoscience and self-victimizing is really unbelievable.”
Typical negro defense, when your victims point the finger at the guilty culprits, you cry innocent! “Oh de bad oohh cracka dun did it, chile!”. Please, spare me. Stop creating strawmen, it’s beneath you. I blame liberal Whites first and foremost for letting you negroes get out of control. Don’t flatter yourselves, you couldn’t have done this without their assistance. The second group that’s most to blame, the front line enforcers, are Blacks. Question: how many negroes are up in arms screaming about mulattoes, and how many Whites? Mhmm.
I got a special article just for you people. You’re going to just love it. Innocent, huh?
“There is an obsession with the concept of “inferior Black blood”-not challenging the idea that any blood is inferior, but proving that they don’t have “that much” of it. It’s fascinating, really.”
What’s fascinating is your intellectual dishonesty. Hey, can you prove YOU’RE NOT inferior?….can ya? Please, show me how, because it only makes my position stronger, stupid. You are a negro-apologist extraordinaire. See, you know you’re fucked. History has proven that. 40 years after the civil rights movement and what have you achieved? 10,000 years in Africa and what have you to show for it? Hmm? Right. Oh, wait, it’s all Whitey’s fault! With excuses like that you could make CEO at BP. You are crabs in a bucket. You figure you’ll take down everyone you can out of sheer spite, and perhaps just an inkling of desire for them “white folks genes”. Am I right? Hey, but guess what!! It’s 2010, and the rest of us, well, maybe we have a chance in hell if you would just shut up and stop lying about how inferior we are. We’re done fighting your battles.
“Like you said @ When I read that it was obvious to me that his purpose wasnt freedom of racial association..”
Read: “not identifying as White”.
“Apparently only mulattos who are able to physically express the right genes matter. SMH.”
Oh geez, did you really just say that? Okay, let’s put this in perspective. Whiteness is a heritage which includes but cultural, physical, and invisible genetic traits. Now, if you are lacking in a major part of that, you can’t be PREDOMINATELY WHITE, even if you are Mulatto. That would make no sense, now would it? Right, you don’t believe in Whiteness because like other idiotic multiculturalists you deny scientific reality in order to preserve your fantasy world. But hey, even if I were wrong about physiognomy, so what? It’s only a slight modification of my conceptualization of heritage. I notice that you aren’t defending the basic idea of White heritage, however. I wonder why that might be……
Oh, I know!
It’s because you DESPISE WHITENESS AND WANT TO DESTROY IT. Do you really think that your constant self-qualification as a “freedom of choice” adherent, disguises your true beliefs and intentions? You are a multiculturalist who believes that Whiteness is a made up, psuedo-scientific, crackpot bunch of jabbery-boo, and you hope to replace it with an ultra-inclusive, mixed up, “AMERICAN” identity. How lovely! Well I have news for you, Whiteness ain’t dead, and it ain’t going to be replaced by some silly American Identity nonsense. And just wait, before you retort with the standard regurgitated bullshit about how Whites will never accept me and so on….THEY DO. Of course not all of them, but hey, you got to start somewhere.
One more thing. I have a question for you…
What are you going to do, when we take our blood and accomplishments away from you? Oh, maybe it will be another 30 years, or even 50! But, the history books will be rewritten, it’s only a matter of time. Identities will change. You are losing access to our genetic material. It terrifies you doesn’t it. The color-line isn’t substantially softening between Whites and Blacks, just between “others” and Whites. It seems someone is getting left behind, as it were. Pretty soon you won’t be able to look to a single mixed race face as an emblem of your negro people. No more excuses then, huh. What are you going to do? You had better quit playing basketball and hit the books. You’re kind of short in the success department.
Enjoy your tar bucket.
And there it is folks!
A new commenter recently informed me that my blog has been discovered by multiracial enthusiasts. I have no problem with that. This blog isn’t meant to be antagonistic. I actually stopped over to the site and saw a lovely thread dedicated to yours truly (erroneously labeling me a mixed identity hater-but I expected the mislabeling and I KNOW it’s intentional). Right under that post was the link to a new (I’m talking BRAND SPANKING, probably inspired by our work here NEW) blog called “Mixed White Advocate”.
Contrary to what may seem logical, I’m actually very excited about this new blog. I don’t post here often, I don’t have the time or desire to make this an everyday thing. But when I am moved to post, it’s not that easy to find information I’m willing to expound on. But with the existence of Mixed White Advocate, I will have access to all the tragedy I need at one web address. It’s a one-stop-tragic-mulatto-stop! How can I be mad at that?
The mixed logic is actually articulated very early on the site. The author opposes the “tar brushing” of mixed people labeled “falsely as racially or ethnically Black”. Yet begs for an unconditional White racial/ethnic identity. You don’t need to be a genius to see the “fuzzy math” here.
I mean, “tar brushing”…seriously??? I can make another post (hell, I can write a BOOK) on the psychology behind the adoption of this term but I’ll just inform you all of the origins:
Basically, the author pleads for society to let them be White in peace! Don’t remind them of the po’ nigga blood that haunts them. It’s bad enough they shudder into a nervous stuper every time they hear the prefix “Afro” in public!
As I said, I believe one could be “mixed White”, and those who are really don’t need anyones permission to be. I’ve stated that much, and I believe it’s a really bad idea to encourage those who identify as such to do otherwise. HOWEVER, why be so upset over people who qualify your Whiteness the way that the Whiteness of every non-WASP is qualified? How can one identity be more or less false than the other? The author attempts (emphasis on *attempts*) to make sense out of nonsense in the June 18th post. There are a lot of ideological, terminological and historical flaws throughout the author’s assessment. But make no mistake-this is done intentionally. In order to create a movement you have to have something to move towards (or against). Unfortunately, the tragedy for this movement is that nearly every point under which the author attempts to build ground is shaky or downright false:
For example, Anatole Broyard, Walter White, Danzy Senna, Nicole Richie, all have White appearances and are presented to audiences as “Black” (most of the time). This belief is institutionalized in movies such as “Imitation of Life” and “The Human Stain”, and books such as “Caucasia”, “The Color of Water”, “Half and Half”, and “Their Eyes Were Watching God”.
The author listed people whose lives literally span a century in American history. Two born before the civil rights movement, one the daughter of civil rights activist (and a self-identified biracial), and the last-Nicole Richie- the living embodiment of a person with Black ancestry who is generally racialized as White. Nicole whitens her appearance (see my previous post for pics of her younger days), and it has apparently served her well in reinforcing a White identity. She has been arrested several times and her race is never listed consistently. Sometimes she’s White and sometimes She’s Black.
The bottom line is, only ONE of the aforementioned have been consistently and unequivocally labeled Black. And the one (White) built a professional LUCRATIVE career on his chosen identity. The author omits the plethora of multiracial figures rarely (if ever) labeled or racialized as Black-some of them are basically White: Vin Deisel, Jessica Szohr, Adriana Lima, Jennifer Beils, Wenworth Miller, Slash-all of these people are still alive By the way, LOL!!!
And many of the multiracial figures who are racialized as Black are often “professionally Black” and privately White or non-Black. This means that they understand the racial system and have CHOSEN to work it for their benefit. Who is to blame for that? While I do think Anatole was a coward, I respect the man for not half-stepping about his intentions.
The author gives a list of movies and books, most of which are located historically in pre-civil rights America, before post-modern identities were norm. If I want to build an argument about contemporary domestic abuse in African American homes, I’m not going to direct ya’ll to The Color Purple as evidence, LMAO. What’s going on RIGHT NOW that you can point to?
The author later asked if we’re confused (I see he knows he’s full of shit). He goes on to give an even MORE convoluted example:
substitute two European ethnicities for White and Black. If a person claims to be Irish, and later we find out that they are half German, we do not accuse them of “passing” for Irish. The reason why is that Irish and German are considered equal, and we do not regard the person as an inferior product masquerading as the superior, genuine article. Negro blood is thought to degrade the superior traits of caucasian blood, meaning that only pure caucasians are genuinely European in their cultural, behavioral, physical, and mental qualities. People of mixed origin are not “good enough” for their White heritage, so society assigns them to the Black caste. This practice is morally and scientifically bankrupt.
This is a huge problem with people who are Amero-centric. Americans in general have little-to-no knowledge of European history, therefore ignorance (coupled with arrogance) makes it’s easy to transfer American racial and ethnic logic to another geographic/historical space. The author says that “If a person claims to be Irish, and later we find out that they are half German, we do not accuse them of “passing” for Irish”. In actuality it is not this simple. With the creation of the European Union, on the surface Europeans have a solid identity. In REALITY there are very solid ethnic hierarchies still in place, particularly between Eastern and Western Europeans. Polish immigrants in Ireland and the UK are often the targets of discrimination and ethnic isolation. So this hypothetical German may have gotten off easy, but the Poles in Ireland and the UK will tell you a different story. Second and third generation Irish people in the UK often find themselves negotiating their ethnic identities the same way biracial people do. They are not readily accepted as British through and through. My beloved James McAvoy’s wife (Ann Marie Duff) discusses this. Has this mulatto ever left the America????
Historically (the author mentions the ODR was law until the 1980s-30 years ago BTW) the White majority saw a NEED for distinct racial lines, especially between White and Black caste. Currently, while this need still exists, they go about expressing it very differently. If you look White and do not challenge Whiteness (there is a difference between being White and Whiteness), you CAN be White with known Black ancestry. You can be “qualified White”, like Jews, like White Latinos-but White nonetheless.
The post continues with a series of purposely narrow definitions and false assumptions:
Consider the concept of “Whiteness”. White” means a person of European heritage, or a person of Caucasian race or appearance. “Heritage” refers to the biological and cultural traits which we acquire from our parents and community. The “One Drop” logic reduces European heritage to a racial origin that mixed people, especially those with an intermediate appearance, are unable to “genuinely” appropriate. But heritage is irreducible to a racial origin, as race does not determine culture (i.e., our learned patterns of thought and behavior).
Here is where the author become purposefully unclear. The One Drop rule consolidates mixed racial heritage to one racial heritage (Black). However, the One Drop Rule could NEVER consolidate ethnic heritage into one heritage. Thats like trying to force a fish to be a dog. The only systematic government attempt at this was imposed on the indigenous children removed from their homes and placed in boarding schools to eliminate their culture/practices/language. This is why the Black-labeled mulattos of Louisiana were still culturally French/African/America, yet the ones of Virginia were still culturally Spanish/African/Indigenous. The author would have you believed they were all placed in a concentration camp and brainwashed. These groups, though labeled Black, remained culturally distinct. The author goes on to say:
It is not only possible, but normative for people of mixed negro and caucasian ancestry, to have predominately European cultural and racial characteristics. This is true whether they look fully caucasian, nearly caucasian, or intermediate.
I am intrigued by this “revelation” and would like to explore it further. To say that a person of mixed ancestry will have predominant Euro racial characteristics is already contradictory (and hypocritical) to the point of his blog, and also unfounded by research. How does a mixed race American determine they are *more* culturally European? The author breaks it down here. Brace yourselves for this ignorance:
… an illustration of how mixing between a White and a Black, produces a White child. Recall that “heritage” refers to the racial and cultural characteristics which we acquire from our parents and community. Racial traits consist of both ancestral lineage and appearance, so I have shown this in the diagram. The diagram also reflects that Blacks are approximately 18% European in their racial origin, and that Blacks who intermarry with Whites have slightly more European blood. The Black parent is drawn with a European cultural heritage, because “Black” culture is actually a variant of poor southern White culture. It’s worth noting, however, that Black culture is actually irrelevant, as most biracials grow up in mainstream White environments with few contacts with Blacks. At any rate, as you can see, the first generation mixed offspring are predominately European, or “White” in their total heritage. Subsequent mixing continues this trend, with rapid attenuation of the Black heritage. The negro heritage is “white-washed” in the matter of a single generation.
The number of ignorant and borderline racist assumptions floored me. I will move forward with the recognition of the arbitrary nature of “racial percentage” mining. Any geneticist worth their salt will acknowledge inherent flaws in the practice. But, if one were to believe in the idea of being “26% X, Y, or Z”, the authors points are still stupid. A few flaws:
1. The author assumes that within an interracial couple, only the Black person will have a degree mixed heritage. We’re finding out every day that this is untrue, particularly with White Americans who have a long history of mixing with indigenous populations, and more recently Asian groups who are more likely to have children racialized as Whites. So, while only about 30% of Whites have Black ancestors (“they’re about 2% Black), a surprising number of Whites Americans still aren’t fully White in ancestry, and this varies by region. Even among Whites directly from Europe, those of Spanish, Italian, Iberian heritage are likely to have ” sub-saharan” ancestry as well. European does not necessarily mean “fully White”.
2. Takings a classic White supremacist approach to American history, the author implies that ONLY European heritage permeates American society, and that “”Black” culture is actually a variant of poor southern White culture”. Am I crazy for finding this terribly tragic? The value placed on European heritage by desperate mulattos is not new to me, but I’m surprised by this level of ignorance. Rather than seeing historical southern culture as a BLEND of African, Indigenous and European cultures, the author reveals the value placed on European-ness (code for whiteness). And like many Americans who go to Europe and return befuddled by just how disconnected they are from what is actually European, the author is in for a very rude awakening. American culture is not European. It is American. And that is a BLEND of the practices of many different people. Sad that you have to explain that to a mulatto…
3. The author states that most biracials “mainstream White environments with few contacts with Blacks”. Perhaps the ones that spend their time whining on youtube do, but research has shown that most identified biracials (many biracials that live in Black neighborhoods are identified solely as Black) actually grow up in urban centers (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.) in DIVERSE neighborhoods. Surely most interracial couples are interested in finding communities that are likely to be open to their relationship or at least not bothered enough to make their lives isolated hells. That means they aren’t moving to Hicktown, West Virginia if they don’t have to.
3. The author’s wet dream is manifested a chart that shows that “The negro heritage is “white-washed” in the matter of a single generation.” The author makes no real consideration for the individual’s contemporary environment, chosen cultural affiliations, relationship with peers of different races-you know all that shit that counts as heritage too. You DO inherit a social environment-even if it’s different from what your parents had. Something being a part of your heritage does NOT mean you get exactly what your ancestors had/have. The mediating factors of time and space make it clear that a French girl in 1940 and a French girl in 2010 will not be the same woman. Evolution, dear mulattos. Social Evolution.
More confusion expressed here:
Not all “White” people are members of a White ethnic group. For instance, many Native Americans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Brazilians, Dominicans, French Creoles, and Mexicans, are of predominately European heritage (i.e. White). Nevertheless, they are members of racially diverse ethnic groups that are not simply European in extraction.(see below)
Race, culture and ethnicity are always confusing-they’re often used interchangeably. For example, most of the identities listed above are actually NATIONALITIES, not ethnic identities. So we know that someone can be a Mexican of full Spanish decent and therefore be White in appearance. Due to blood quantum laws (like the ODR-gasp), some Native Americans are entirely White in appearance. For most of the nationalities listed above, no matter what they called themselves in their home countries, when they come to America-there are no guarantees.
What makes the post even funnier (or sadder), is that this blog doesn’t advocate for the “rightful heritage” of all biracials. The author is only concerned for those who “look fully caucasian, nearly caucasian, or intermediate”.
Sorry Bob Marley.
In taking this position, he/she actually implicitly accepts/advocates for arbitrary racial labeling-he just wants to be on the right White side. To put it simply, the EXCLUSION of biracials who “look fully caucasian, nearly caucasian, or intermediate” from the White identity can actually be justified using this very same argument. And it appears that the author may know this:
It should be noted, that to be a member of a community requires both your permission and the acceptance of that group of people. When I refer to Anglo White Americans, or “Mixed Whites” in this sense, I mean those that claim a White or European identity. I do not mean that they are accepted as members of the White community.
I must say despite the stupidity in that post, this is one of the first I’ve read that didn’t have an entire essay dedicated to whining about how Black people put them in this tragic position. Not yet anyway…
I am floored by this story. Truly. Okay…not really. I’ve worked closely with educators and I’m not surprised by ANYTHING some teachers feel comfortable doing and saying to children.
A young biracial girl in the Seattle School District was recently removed from her honors class by her teacher. The teacher claimed she was allergic to the girl’s hair product. Organic Root Stimulator to be exact:
Apparently this child was the only person of color in her honors class, and among all of those children, the little mulatto was the unbearably smelly one. Coincidence?
Probably not.
To make matters even more hilarious (and ridiculous), the teacher is a dog owner! And sure, she could have a hypoallergenic dog (which would explain why she is unbothered by dog hair/dander). But between cleaning dog shit, dog baths, dog perfumes, flea baths and dog farts, it’s hard for me to believe Olive Oil moisturizer made the teacher sickly.
The little girl was ordered to sit and do her work in the regular class. The class that happens to be full of brown and black children.
The father has blogged about this incident, and doesn’t hesitate to call it what it is. He even goes on to mention that the media attention focused almost entirely on the girl’s White mother (remember what I said about White women and the multiracial movement, and their ability to demand privilege for their “not so black kids”), and he believes this was done to give the impression that the girl is White (or to not overstate her non-Whiteness) and therefore make her worthy of public sympathy. In centering her mother the ugliness that is racism won’t be overtly assumed, but would be more seriously handled. After all, Black children being streamlined out of honors classes is no new phenomenong. Teachers and administrators have been doing this for YEARS. The hair product defense is the funniest I’ve heard yet. The girl’s White mother just “couldn’t comprehend it”.
But her father knows the game. And now she does too.
The NAACP is apparently representing the family (sigh…”real negroes” to the rescue AGAIN). So while the White mother is in her confused stupor, the NAACP does all of the dirty talk for her. The White mother is the face we sympathize with, the NAACP is the organization that mobilizes (and takes the abuse for being “race-baitors”). When will Blacks stop assuming the role of whipping boy for any and every person with a tan? Let’s find out just how Black this child was before she encountered a teacher who didn’t give a damn whether she looked like Whoopi Golberg or not. Even the father believes that she was moved to the “regular black class” to be put in her place… a place they likely made sure she didn’t belong. Where is project RACE and the millions of mulatto organizations sprouting up by the second? Why aren’t they up in arms?
I wish I knew where to begin, but I don’t. I’m not going to focus too much on the “black women are terrible and need to sacrifice their lives on the bloody cross of Jesus for any nigga available” rhetoric because frankly, it’s a dead horse that I simply I don’t feel like beating. Besides, Professor Marc Lamont Hill did a decent job of checking “Dim Thug”. Thug actually had the nerve to respond to Dr. Hill by stating that they are different men in different industries and therefore, they meet “different types of women”. However, in his initial interview he praises his mulatto girlfriend for being smart and non-gold-diggerish like the Black women who don’t want to be slaves to their husbands. His mulatto broad cooks and cleans and shuts the fuck up and never asks for money. Dim Thug attributes her stellar feminine behavior to “the White in her“:
My girl is Black and White. I guess the half White in her is where she still cooks and do all the shit that I say, so we make it. She just takes care of me and I like that. She don’t be begging and I don’t gotta buy her all this crazy ass shit.
Guess what school he claims his obedient girlfriend went to? Columbia University. The same institution that happens to employ Dr. Lamont Hill. Now why on earth would she date slim thug if, by his admission, she is basically out of his class?
Pay attention:
Black people, especially Black men, fetishize mulatto women. Mulattos, especially mulatto women, know this-and will welcome it with open arms if it privileges them.
PERIOD.
People generally do NOT turn down undue advantage. People generally do NOT surrender the possibility of an easy or easier life for racial solidarity or sisterhood. This is why White feminism has failed to appeal to most women of color for over a hundred years. And the mulatto (ambiguous looking) woman is in an interesting place here, because some are in a position to manipulate their identities. So when non-biracial Black women note that they are privileged, they are called jealous and hateful. But when a Black man basically states that a mulatto woman has inherited superiority through white lineage, the world sort of ignores the implication of that statement. The fervor surrounding Slim’s statements focused on his hate for Black women, but the colorist angle-the implications about mulatto-ness- was virtually dismissed by everyone. Including Black female bloggers. I’m surprised by this.
As I stated in my earlier post about the position of Mulatto women in the Black community, it is her Whiteness that gives her value and her Blackness that makes her inferior to the White women his brother is fortunate enough to encounter. Slim thug essentially says that mulatto and white women are worthy of “positive stereotyping” (though any feminist will contests the classification of his rant as white/mulatto positive). Kola Boof (love her or hate her) speaks the ABSOLUTE TRUTH on this-with far less apprehension. We live in a patriarchal society that privileges women who meet stereotypical feminine ideals. And regardless of the anti-feminist ideology, a part of that privilege includes the RIGHT TO WANT MEN WITH STATUS WITHOUT BEING MALIGNED FOR IT. It includes THE RIGHT to leverage your “beauty”/appearance for social and economic gain. Click on the Kola link to read a much better essay on that fact.
Despite the blatant objectification of his girlfriend’s race by Slim Thug, I would bet my life the girl will “ride or die” with him. I bet she won’t take offense to what his statements imply about her or her even her naturally dim-witted and docile mother. Why?
He may claim she doesn’t ask for anything, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t actually GETTING anything.
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