Posted on 06/12/2008 5:48:42 PM PDT by forkinsocket
When Barack Obama, whose mother was white, identifies himself as black, and when Bill Richardson, whose father was white, identifies himself as Hispanic, who is white?
The U.S. Census Bureau says the country will be majority-minority in 2050 -- that is, the combined number of blacks, Asians, American Indians and Hispanics will put whites in the minority. Texas and California are already there.
But the definition of white keeps shifting. Groups have been welcomed in or booted out; people opt out, sue to get in or change their minds and jump back and forth.
The deepest racial divide, between blacks and nonblacks, endures. But there also are identity shifts among African-Americans, as Sen. Obama's success suggests. Some make it into the middle class, where education and social mobility may help shape their identities as much as race does. Others are left behind in increasingly segregated schools and neighborhoods.
The U.S. has never found it easy to assign race, although it certainly has tried. A century ago, the people who did the counting -- demographers, sociologists, policy thinkers -- divided whites into three strata. They considered Nordic whites, from England, Scandinavia and Germany, the most ethnically desirable and elite, followed by the Alpine whites, from eastern and central Europe, and finally the Mediterraneans. Everyone else was identified as black, red, yellow or brown, which included South Asians.
Whiteness and the privileges that came with it were so closely guarded that in 1912, a House committee held hearings on whether Italians were really Caucasian, says Thomas Guglielmo, a historian at George Washington University. The idea was picked up from Italy, where northern, lighter-skinned Italians, were asking the same questions about the southern, darker-skinned Italians, he says.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Being a minority today is so chic that anyone who can find a drop of black,brown or yellow blood in him/her will announce that they are that minority.
you know when i was a kid people who were 1/32 or 1/64 th
were black in some states.
yes, it does keep shifting.
but i don’t see obama doing anything others do not do.
What I want to know is why such a need to keep deep detailed records on free citizens ?
This dates from the Ice Age, not the recent Mongolian occupation of Hungary, Estonia, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, etc.
At the same time all East Asians have 5% European ancestry.
A mere 50,000 years ago East Asians and Europeans constituted a single population in Central Asia.
Well, it does give the claimant the perk of looking down on anyone else who doesn't have that drop of minority in them.
As someone who lived through the 1960’s, I would have thought that,by now, the issue of racial identity would be a part of the past. But unfortunately, the country decided at some point to make racial identity a part of public policy. So now we are told incessantly to make decisions on the basis of “race”.
It’s seems that our federal government is unable to get beyond the point of classifying people.
Everyone else is a person of color!
What's so hard about this straightforward logical assertion?
***Being a minority today is so chic that anyone who can find a drop of black,brown or yellow blood in him/her will announce that they are that minority.***
Not so long ago “one drop” of black blood made a white person “black” in Louisiana. It was so printed on the birth certificates and many people lived in terror of that “drop” being found.
the joke is that science does not recognize a “white” race. They do recognize a Caucasian race which encompasses Europeans, Middle Easterners, East Indians and North Africans. The concept of a “white” race needs to be laid to rest as it has caused tremondous mischief.
19th Century Junk Science believed that all folks from said regions were from the Caucasus Mountains. "Caucasian" should only be used for Armenians and Georgians.
Besides, I never saw any real evidence of a "Hispanic" race. The only place where "Hispanic" is used as a racial category is the U S of A. The old 19th century racial categories you post failed to take into account the large number of racially mixed peoples in Latin America, India, Indonesia, etc.
The idea of Indians as being part of the "Aryan" race was disproved by science long ago. Modern Indians are a mixture of various ethnic groups.
As for myself. Call me white devil, Euro American, or paleface. DO NOT CALL ME CAUCASIAN!
Go argue with the scientists that you belong to the “white” race and that you are not a Caucasian. Why is it so important?
When I was in Siena, I had a driver who said that as far as he was concerned, Italy north of Tuscany was Germany; Italy south of Tuscany was Africa.
No one considers “Hispanic” a race.
Most scientists focus on genetic distribution, and the multifaceted components that result from it. In other words, no more "negroid, mongoloid, caucasoid" which would get you laughed out of any classroom or conference if employed.
Tell that to the media and many of our fellow freepers on this site. Even the term “La Raza Cosmica” only refers to Mexican mestizos (created by a neo-Hegelian crank named Jose Vasconcelos).
Exactly! and that is why being “white” is scientifically meaningless. You got it!
Absolutely.
I read somewhere that if you have blood type B that your ancestors came from the Orient originally.
Too bad we can't claim a drop of "gay blood". Then we'd be loved and respected by our liberal masters. And we could scream discrimination at the drop of a hat when we don't get our way.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.