on racial mixing and white privilege

[baratron]

I haven't said very much about the "Racefail" business that's been happening on various parts of the internet due to lack of coherent comment, but I thought of something interesting yesterday

Comments

[barakta]

This is a very interesting post - thanks for writing it.

You're one of the people I think of when I remind myself that non all "non-white" people fit an official "BME" label and so on. I didn't realise you were mixed race till about 2 years ago, I don't always notice even "obviously" mixed race people - a bit like my inability to gender people which in mainstream worlds gets me laughed at.

I get a lot of this with deaf/hearing privilege - I pass well enough as a hearie that it does affect personal and political identities. If I was much deafer than I am, requiring a lot more patience from people or BSL to communicate I would not be as able to integrate into my non-Deaf communities of choice.

[johnckirk]

(Disclaimer: I haven't heard about the "racefail" business, so I don't know the background context to your post.)

I think the "mixed race" thing is a bit tricky, because it depends how far back you go. For instance, I'd guess that some of my ancestors were French (via the Norman conquest), and others were Italian (via Roman Britain); there may be a few Viking rapists in there too. However, I just describe myself as "White British". For that matter, if you go back far enough, we probably all started out in the same part of Africa, but there's not much point using the same term to describe everyone.

[baratron]

I'm sure one of the North American SF fans will be able to fill you in on the Racefail business, as I'm not sure I could even begin to summarise such a complicated few months of Drama in my current state of exam-taking. So I'll just comment on your comment.

Oh, of course it depends on how far back you go. Richard is in the interesting position of having had a mother who was seriously into family history and traced their descent back several hundred years through parish records. He knows for a fact that he is descended from, as he calls them, "pointless peasants" - and is about as white and English as anyone could be, considering the number of times the island has been invaded.

And there is the issue that the concept of race is a construct, as it combines genetic heritage, ethnicity, and cultural heritage. Sometimes people with similar genetic heritage have very different cultural heritage, and vice versa. Also, people with similar genetic heritage can express those genes differently and so have different apparent or visible

[anansi133]

My science-fiction brain is revving up, wondering how long it would take before "mixed race" gets lost in the noise. It wasn't that long ago, where having Irish ancestry made a person not-white. If Barack Obama's kids only ever make babies with white partners, how many generations would have to pass before the progeny were no longer considered "other"?

And that half-breed Spock, you can never tell what he's going to be up to, or who he's making it with. Human female is bad enough, but a black human female? Makes K/S fiction seem practically vanilla.

I would like it a lot if "other" were considered sufficient answer to any question about race, and this new ethnicity of "other" could be populated by anyone who bothered to claim the title. White people would eventually bring discrimination lawsuits against these "other"s, because they felt they were being mistreated simply because they claimed their white heritage.

[baratron]

I'm aware that a skin colour allele can lie hidden in offspring for many years before suddenly, in the tenth or eleventh generation, a dark-skinned baby is born to a "white" family. Also, sometimes mixed-race people end up like me with characteristics in the middle, and sometimes you get the situation of my cousins who are brothers with the same parents: where one is tall, white-skinned, blond hair, blue eyes, American-looking; and the other is short, dark-skinned, black hair, brown eyes, Asian-looking. So considering all the recessive alleles which can be hidden, I don't think the world will ever get overrun with people who all look the same. I suppose the question has to be asked as to whether different skin colours convey any advantage in the modern world (where we can use sunscreen, go inside, or take vitamin D tablets) and whether humans are still undergoing natural selection

[hatter]

Was the racefail thing related to the white 'african american' college (white bloke, born and bred in africa, moved to america - some black not particularly african americans whine, college kicks out bloke) ? Plus I still boggle at the fail of the world press to acknowledge the point that the USA has a mixed-race president.

People like boxes for other people though, nothing you can really do about that, other than remind them they are just convenient not 100% accurate.

the hatter

[baratron]

Part of my love for Obama stems from the fact that he's proudly mixed-race. When he was getting the family dog, he suggested that he wanted to get "a mutt, like me", and my heart sang. I love that it's no longer unusual to be neither one nor the other but somewhere inbetween.

It's funny how much of my identity stems from being somewhere inbetween established norms.

[ailbhe]

What Irish tooth mutation thing?

(Irish women also have the longest-lasting fertility in Europe, apparently, and so need to use contraception for longer/can have babies longer, thank the bountiful lord for toddlers AND teenagers during menopause, hurrah hurrah for the rhythm method, etc.)

[baratron]

My wisdom teeth at the top are only half-sized. They're like baby teeth. I don't think it's a common mutation, but it's interesting. Not least of all because if the evil NHS orthodontist had had his way and taken out 8 of my teeth, I'd have been left with only one functioning molar!

The other strange tooth mutation I have is that I've had three canines on my right hand side at the top. I had the baby tooth, it fell out, a new one grew, then when I was 15 or so that one fell out and a new one grew. It's definitely the canine and not a displaced other tooth because canines aren't anything like incisors or premolars in shape. Weird...