What Race is Obama?
"race" is a fake category, therefore so is "bi-racial". there are no lines, only a universal gradient. a rainbow drawn by a child or an illustrator may have discreet roy g. biv (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) segments, but a real rainbow in the real world is a continuous gradient with no boundaries between one color and another. nevertheless, it is useful to differentiate "red" from "blue", and we know what that difference is. but the difference between "red" and "orange" is to a large degree subjective, and a matter of context and contrast. so is the genetic continuum of humanity. then there is the maligned and misused connotation of "discrimination" to consider. "discrimination" means you can tell the difference, but it is often misused as a synonym for "prejudice", which is an unfair judgment based on an acknowledgment of a difference. discrimination is good to cultivate (being able to tell the difference between a merlot and a pinoir is discriminating). prejudice is a good thing to eradicate.
if color is a non-prejudicial and descriptive category, i personally like "coffee-and-cream". it's descriptive and has the poetic quality of implying a "flavor."
an iraqi doesn't look like a chinaman. but an iraqi does look like an iranian, and an iranian looks like an afghani, and an afghani looks like a chinaman. and the modern israeli is more european than hebrew, while the original hebrews were more "purely" semitic and probably genetically indistinguishable from a "palestinian" (or a "samaritan").
- on a mild tangent; what happened to the ten lost tribes of israel? they didn't really wander into the desert and just couldn't find their way back. they just didn't preserve their tribal identity. they assimilated and intermarried. the modern palestinian is likely to be much more "jewish", with a lost israeli tribe or two in the woodpile, than he might like to admit.
- and a tangent further afield: modern reconstructions of the typical hebrew of jesus' day look more like moe (of the three stooges) than like peter o'toole. a blond-haired, blue-eyed jesus is a cultural projection far removed from the actuality.
"race" is a fake category, therefore so is "bi-racial". there are no lines, only a universal gradient. a rainbow drawn by a child or an illustrator may have discreet roy g. biv (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) segments, but a real rainbow in the real world is a continuous gradient with no boundaries between one color and another. nevertheless, it is useful to differentiate "red" from "blue", and we know what that difference is. but the difference between "red" and "orange" is to a large degree subjective, and a matter of context and contrast. so is the genetic continuum of humanity. then there is the maligned and misused connotation of "discrimination" to consider. "discrimination" means you can tell the difference, but it is often misused as a synonym for "prejudice", which is an unfair judgment based on an acknowledgment of a difference. discrimination is good to cultivate (being able to tell the difference between a merlot and a pinoir is discriminating). prejudice is a good thing to eradicate.
if color is a non-prejudicial and descriptive category, i personally like "coffee-and-cream". it's descriptive and has the poetic quality of implying a "flavor."
an iraqi doesn't look like a chinaman. but an iraqi does look like an iranian, and an iranian looks like an afghani, and an afghani looks like a chinaman. and the modern israeli is more european than hebrew, while the original hebrews were more "purely" semitic and probably genetically indistinguishable from a "palestinian" (or a "samaritan").
- on a mild tangent; what happened to the ten lost tribes of israel? they didn't really wander into the desert and just couldn't find their way back. they just didn't preserve their tribal identity. they assimilated and intermarried. the modern palestinian is likely to be much more "jewish", with a lost israeli tribe or two in the woodpile, than he might like to admit.
- and a tangent further afield: modern reconstructions of the typical hebrew of jesus' day look more like moe (of the three stooges) than like peter o'toole. a blond-haired, blue-eyed jesus is a cultural projection far removed from the actuality.
posted by src at
12:46 PM
