“Mixed Mexican” and The Fallacy of Race

Funny and enlightening at the same time.

Saw this on Mixed American Life’s site. Very good video demonstrating the complexity of “race” and it’s non-existence. Worth watching.

Here is the video.

Mixed People Monday – Ali Landry

Who can forget her Doritos Superbowl commercial?

The former beauty queen and now actress is part Cajun-French (from Louisiana) and Mexican.

“Race” Is Not Real

We need to get beyond skin.

Here are some facts about the concept of “race” that for some reason people just don’t realize:

Race is a modern idea. Ancient societies, like the Greeks, did not divide people according to physical distinctions, but according to religion, status, class, even language. The English language didn’t even have the word ‘race’ until it turns up in 1508 in a poem by William Dunbar referring to a line of kings.

Race has no genetic basis. Not one characteristic, trait or even gene distinguishes all the members of one so-called race from all the members of another so-called race.

Human subspecies don’t exist. Unlike many animals, modern humans simply haven’t been around long enough or isolated enough to evolve into separate subspecies or races. Despite surface appearances, we are one of the most similar of all species.

Skin color really is only skin deep. Most traits are inherited independently from one another. The genes influencing skin color have nothing to do with the genes influencing hair form, eye shape, blood type, musical talent, athletic ability or forms of intelligence. Knowing someone’s skin color doesn’t necessarily tell you anything else about him or her.

Most variation is within, not between, “races.” Of the small amount of total human variation, 85% exists within any local population, be they Italians, Kurds, Koreans or Cherokees. About 94% can be found within any continent. That means two random Koreans may be as genetically different as a Korean and an Italian.

This information is from a California Newsreel report (thanks to Mixed American Life for posting).

“Race” is a silly concept that we have let divide us for way too long. Words do matter and as long as we believe that this word “race” has meaning we act on it. Let’s get over this erroneously used word. We are not different races.

Republican Racism Will Make Party Obsolete

Wow, “shuck and jive” Sarah? Really?

Re-posted from The Huffington Post

Well I guess this puts all the talk about a “post-racial America” to rest.

The Associated Press released a report on Saturday that shows a majority of Americans, in fact an increasing number, still harbor prejudice against blacks and Hispanics. 51 percent of all Americans expressed anti-black attitudes, compared with 48 percent in 2008 when the president first won election. Another AP survey showed 57 percent of Americans expressed anti-Hispanic feelings.

The results were not actually surprising. Once we got past the euphoria of Obama’s historic win, which was only possible with a multi-colored and multi-ethnic coalition, it became clear that the progress we gained was also going to result in a significant and predictably ugly backlash as well. Those who were not ready to see the long line of similarly pigmented men in the most powerful position on Earth were surely not going to sit back and not try to stir things up a bit.

Read more here.

 

 

 

Mixed People Monday – Mario Van Peebles

From acting and directing roots.

The actor and director has an African-American father and a white German mother.

Thandie Newton On Growing Up Mixed And The Power of Hair

Embracing her mixed roots.

I’ve always like Thandie Newton, the British actress, and this interview only adds to my respect for her. She talks about being “bi-racial” and how her hair impacted her growing up and why she has chosen to embrace its natural look now. Well worth the read.

Here is the link.

Mixed People Monday – Teri Hatcher

An interesting blend.

The actress, best known for her role on “Desperate Housewives,” comes from a father who was of Welsh and Choctaw Native American ancestry and her mother was of French, German and Syrian Ancestry.

White Student Union At Towson State Is Just A Cover For Bigotry

 

So who sponsors this group, the KKK?

This guy’s agenda is so transparent.

The student behind a controversial White Student Union at Towson University claims that the group is necessary to fight “inherent anti-white bias in academia and mainstream society.”

The group, started by Towson senior Matthew Heimbach, has sparked a debate about the balance between students’ First Amendment rights and clamping down on what many have condemned as racism at the Maryland University.

Proof of his agenda is that apparently Heimbach is a “white nationalist” and has before tried to spark ethnic divisions and tensions. He is the former leader of Youth for Western Civilization, a right-wing group that gained significant media attention after their public displays against same-sex marriage and Sharia Law.So his supposed reasoning for the group rings very hollow.According to him:

Every single other ethnic group has an advocacy group for themselves. We have a black student union, a Hispanic student union, an Asian student union. We have groups for every other group of people except for white students. So if white students are allowed to come together and advocate for our own best interests simply would bring us into the realm that every single other group is allowed.

People like him for some reason like to ignore, or pretend they don’t understand that on a majority white campus or in a majority white country, cultural minority groups form simply as a means of support when the larger community might not understand or recognize their culture. I doubt the white culture at Towson is not adequately represented. Thus groups like this white students’ union are proposed as a way to strike back, not because whites are not being understood, respected or represented adequately.

Further proof that this group’s mission is just to stir up trouble is that their first speaker was a renowned “racial separatist who advocates the “races” as he calls it, keeping apart, and that our multicultural society is in trouble precisely because we are too multicultural.

Hmm. Doesn’t sound to me like a group formed to be a positive voice on campus. Here is a link to one article and here is another, with a long interview at the bottom of the article with the group’s founder, the “racial separatist” and some black intellectuals. Worth watching when you get time.

 

Mixed Couples – Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos

A great looking pair.

The popular TV host, Ripa, and actor/host, Consuelos, who by the way is half Mexican and half Italian, married in 1996 and have three children.

Mixed People Monday – Rhona Mitra

She was also the model for the “Lara Croft” video games.

The British born actress, Rhona Mitra (sometimes spelled Rona), is Bengali Indian, English and Irish.