Site logo

Prometheus 6

All respect and no restraint

NBC's Black Women series: A twofer

Friday's political segment was kind of boring so let's get past it


...and get to the one they've been working toward all week. Interracial dating.


I'm actually trying to figure out why this was a seperate segment from the Relationships one. And frankly, they'd have done better to just broadcast the chunk I saw earlier this week.

Really.

You know, we could get all analytical about it. Men marry down, but not too far down, women marry up, and you really reach a point where most of the "up" from where you are is old and wrinkly. Don't mean no harm...and haven't brought race into it yet. Professional women (strange term, that) across the board have this problem. So what next, talk about the brothers that date outside the race vs. the sisters that date outside the race?

What's the point? If you're lucky or paying close attention, you'll meet a partner. Someone you don't need to explain every fucking thing in life to. The way things work, odds are that will be someone of your own race. Sometimes it's not, though. And that's all there should be to it.

But it's not.

Hey, what can I tell you? You want I should lie?

You know there's an agenda...


The number of children in interracial families rose from 500,000 in 1970 to 2 million in 1990. Between 1960 and 1990 the percentage of African American marriages involving a white spouse more than tripled, from 1.7 percent to 6 percent. Sixty-five percent of Japanese-Americans marry someone of another race. 

The multiracial category would serve civic health by undermining the obsession with race and ethnicity that fuels identity politics. Such politics proceed on the assumption that individuals are defined by their membership in this or that racial or ethnic group, often a group that cultivates its sense of solidarity by nurturing its grievances. The multiracial category is opposed by many who have a stake in today's racial spoils system, and thus favor maintaining the categories that help Balkanize America.

That's from 1997 George Will piece where he references the new "multiracial" category used by the Census.  I don't know if that's the exact column I remember but I've heard similar ideas which suggest that there will be no solution to the race problem until we are all mixed to the point where there are no more distinguishable "races." 

This agenda always struck me as saying, "we have to fuck our way out of this" all while letting white supremacy run its course undisturbed by anything save for the ultimate, eventual new world created by Orgy, Inc.

 

OT: Trying to spead the word

Most important news to come out of the Black and Brown Forum in Iowa and something that should be of concern to the AfroSphere:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7127.html

Hillary Clinton comes out AGAINST retroactivity in drug sentencing

Just spreading the word, because this is major.

Offspring of biracial

Offspring of biracial marriages are not necessarily going to ignore racial categories and learn to sing kumbaya.  As long as there are social and economic incentives for embracing racism, people will find a way to divide the citizenry based on new categories.  Mulatto children of slave masters were not shielded from white supremacy even as they occasionally received better treatment from their captors and learned to discriminate against their darker brethren.  People like Wills who point to this still relatively minuscule trend as socially beneficial are looking to protect their "spoils system" just as much as people who abhor it.  In my opinion, the rise in interracial marriages is a victory for people who want to protect their individual right to be with whom ever they choose, but it is not a collective solution that will change how strangers live and interact with one another.                 

In my opinion, the rise in


In my opinion, the rise in interracial marriages is a victory for people who want to protect their individual right to be with whom ever they choose, but it is not a collective solution that will change how strangers live and interact with one another.

Bullseye. My daughter was absolutely non-racial for various reasons...until she read some of my incoming email, some of her own from folks who, because of her vocabulary and writing skills, assumed she was white, and studied history in depth in college. Now she still prefers to be open in her associations but will jack you over racism, sexism and such. 

This site best viewed with a jaundiced eye