nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
For goodness sake what?
Apparently Barack "isn't black"
- Thread starter john eden
- Start date
For goodness sake what?
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
john eden
male pale and stale
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
A bunch of people in the soc dept at my college wrote papers about this in the early 2000s. Lightness is definitely prized among african-american females and seen as more "feminine", while darker skin is considered more masculine.
It's easy to see if you take a quick look at female actresses and performers and compare them to male atheletes, actors, performers, etc.
jambo
slip inside my schlafsack
Would you say that Obama is mixed-social construct then?nomadthesecond said:
The point was not that I have never heard of people being of mixed ethnicity (what???) but that it is curious for the politically correct arbiters of 'preferred nomenclature' to stand against the notion of race as being inherently racist on the one hand but to approve the use of terms like 'mixed-race' and 'multi-racial' on the other.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Uhh when did I say I approved of them? I said they were preferred in the U.S.
There are tons of things here that are preferred that I think are flat out wrong.
do figures like this really increase by the same proportion annually though? also, im not sure i really like the way these stats for the US' ethnic makeup (usually with some fear-instilling agenda) are divided into 'whites' and then everyone else. plus 46% of the population isnt quite a minority. whites will still be the racial majority. its only when you group it into (all) non-whites and whites as the polar opposite that it seems that way.
jambo
slip inside my schlafsack
I said PC arbiters of 'preferred nomenclature'. Is that you? Do you have a badge?nomadthesecond said:
But if you're asking:
'I don't think anyone has any problem'
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Yes, so the U.S. is going to be a "minority majority" country within the next few decades. So that 100% white people (or those who identify as such, anyway) are no longer the majority.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Yes, which meant, I don't think Americans have a hard time acknowledging that some people who LOOK "black" are IN FACT of mixed heritage.
Did you read the post or are you intent on taking everything I say out of context for your own convenience?
vimothy
yurp
Slightly OT, but I liked what David Boaz said,
For two years now, everyone has talked about Barack Obama becoming the first black president, barely 40 years after the civil rights revolution. Obama himself has often said, “I don’t look like I came out of central casting when it comes to presidential candidates.”
But his achievement is even more striking than “first African-American president.” There are tens of millions of white Americans who are part of ethnic groups that have never produced a president. The fact is, all 42 of our presidents have been of British, Irish, or Germanic descent. We’ve never had a president of southern or eastern European ancestry. Despite the millions of Americans who came to the New World from France, Italy, Poland, Spain, Scandinavia, Russia, and other parts of Europe–not to mention Asia and the Arab world and Latin America–we’ve never had a president who traced his ancestry to those parts of the world. Indeed, it’s often been said that “we’ve never had a president whose name ended in a vowel” (except for a silent ”e” such as Coolidge, and with the exception of Kennedy), which is another way of saying “not of southern or eastern European heritage”).
As Philip Q. Yang put it in his book Ethnic Studies: Issues and Approaches, “There have been no presidents of southern and eastern European descent; and none of Jewish, African, Latino, Asian, or Indian descent.” We’ve had 37 presidents of British (English, Scottish, or Welsh) or Irish descent; three of Dutch descent (Van Buren and the two Roosevelts); and two of Swiss/German descent (Hoover and Eisenhower). Of course, these categories usually refer to the president’s paternal line; Reagan, for instance, was Irish on his father’s side but not on his mother’s. But that doesn’t change the overall picture.
In this light, Obama’s achievement is even more remarkable. He has achieved something that no American politician even of southern or eastern European heritage has managed. But I think we can assume that from now on there won’t be any perceived disadvantage to candidates of Italian, French, Asian, or other previous genealogies not previously seen in the White House. For that, congratulations to Barack Obama.
But his achievement is even more striking than “first African-American president.” There are tens of millions of white Americans who are part of ethnic groups that have never produced a president. The fact is, all 42 of our presidents have been of British, Irish, or Germanic descent. We’ve never had a president of southern or eastern European ancestry. Despite the millions of Americans who came to the New World from France, Italy, Poland, Spain, Scandinavia, Russia, and other parts of Europe–not to mention Asia and the Arab world and Latin America–we’ve never had a president who traced his ancestry to those parts of the world. Indeed, it’s often been said that “we’ve never had a president whose name ended in a vowel” (except for a silent ”e” such as Coolidge, and with the exception of Kennedy), which is another way of saying “not of southern or eastern European heritage”).
As Philip Q. Yang put it in his book Ethnic Studies: Issues and Approaches, “There have been no presidents of southern and eastern European descent; and none of Jewish, African, Latino, Asian, or Indian descent.” We’ve had 37 presidents of British (English, Scottish, or Welsh) or Irish descent; three of Dutch descent (Van Buren and the two Roosevelts); and two of Swiss/German descent (Hoover and Eisenhower). Of course, these categories usually refer to the president’s paternal line; Reagan, for instance, was Irish on his father’s side but not on his mother’s. But that doesn’t change the overall picture.
In this light, Obama’s achievement is even more remarkable. He has achieved something that no American politician even of southern or eastern European heritage has managed. But I think we can assume that from now on there won’t be any perceived disadvantage to candidates of Italian, French, Asian, or other previous genealogies not previously seen in the White House. For that, congratulations to Barack Obama.
jambo
slip inside my schlafsack
You asked me where you had said that you approved of the term, even though it was the 'arbiters of PC language' I had mentioned, not nomadthesecond. So I quoted where you implied that you were OK with the term.
I think it's fairly acceptable as a term but I was just pointing out the inconsitency of utterly denying 'race' on the one hand, and accusing those who claim to recognise it as a reality of being racists, and using the language of race on the other.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
As a matter of fact, yes, I would.
His life is a perfect sort of manifestation of the sort of cultural forces that exist based upon solely visual "racial" constructs and how they are insufficient.
Barack Obama was raised in predominantly "white" neighborhoods where schools received more funding and performed better. This gave him an automatic "leg up" over other people with skin as dark as his who were not raised by "whites" in white neighborhoods. His father was an African immigrant who left the family to go to Harvard, not a typical slave-descended black person in the U.S. This also affected his eligibility for admissions at Harvard.
Even so, as soon as he could, after Harvard, he fought loud and hard for the constitutional rights of black people. Even though he isn't slave-descended, he has no doubt encountered the same racism that anyone who looks black encounters in the U.S. He knows that the social construction of race wins out over reality and understanding anyday. This is why he thinks it's so important to have a progressive tax code, and why he wants to give students 5,000 federal dollars toward tuition if they volunteer in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Barack Obama understands the horrible effects of social constructions like race and the resulting norms as well as anyone and better than most.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Most people who prefer the term "mixed-race" DO NOT deny the existence of race. Most "PC" people actually believe wholeheartedly in it.
jambo
slip inside my schlafsack
I would aspire not to give a toss how black or otherwise someone is. In other words I agree with the bit I already quoted -Any comments on my OP, Jambo?
john eden said:
Presumably if there's a discussion to be had for those that are interested it is around the implications of perceptions of and attitudes to colour / race.
john eden
male pale and stale
OK cool. Are you interested in discussions around the implications of perceptions and attitudes to colour/race?
Try fitting these three propositions into your head all at once, for pomo PC laffs:
"Reality is socially constructed" (there is nothing but bodies and languages)
"Race is a social construct" (languages construct bodies as raced)
"Race is not real" (the notion of race is demonstrably incoherent)
There are all sorts of things we habitually take for real that race is at least as real as, regrettably. Obama seems to bridge two "realities", one in which race is real (if incoherently so) and he is a black man, and another in which race is no longer real (has lost all symbolic efficiency) and "the colour of his skin" no longer signifies as a racial marker.
My guess is that the US itself is now a kind of disjunctive synthesis of these two realities: a racist society that has a dream of becoming a non-racist one, and a post-racial society that has not completely awoken from the nightmare of once having been something else. If so, Obama's presidency is at least a potent sign of the times.
"Reality is socially constructed" (there is nothing but bodies and languages)
"Race is a social construct" (languages construct bodies as raced)
"Race is not real" (the notion of race is demonstrably incoherent)
There are all sorts of things we habitually take for real that race is at least as real as, regrettably. Obama seems to bridge two "realities", one in which race is real (if incoherently so) and he is a black man, and another in which race is no longer real (has lost all symbolic efficiency) and "the colour of his skin" no longer signifies as a racial marker.
My guess is that the US itself is now a kind of disjunctive synthesis of these two realities: a racist society that has a dream of becoming a non-racist one, and a post-racial society that has not completely awoken from the nightmare of once having been something else. If so, Obama's presidency is at least a potent sign of the times.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
"Race is not real" IS NOT, nor has it ever been, a "PC" sentiment or proposition. It's a scientific proposition that "race is not a biological fact."
But hey, if you're into constructing strawmen, have a ball.
D
droid
Guest
Aha! That explains it so:
The town of Moneygall, County Offaly is already planning for his visit:
If one accepts the first two propositions, one may have a few embarrassments with expressions like "biological fact" (and might enjoy pointing out that race has enjoyed, for a significant part of its ignominious history, precisely the status of "biological fact", with many "scientific propositions" being devoted to its elucidation)...