Race

[Justin24]

Technically isn't there only one race in this world, the human race. So why do we label each other with color, or sexuallity, etc... We are all one and the same a human race. Is my logic wrong?

 

[Vincent Vega]

I'm not a fan of using race when it comes to people.

Your logic is wrong in the gender thing.
They don't belong into the category race.

We label each other with color because we haven't learned to just don't care about it.
Sexuality as well is not a race.
And also here people haven't learned yet just to not care about the other's sexuality.

 

[Justin24]

Ok I was wrong on the two but you do agree that we put names/label on people of skin color when it should not matter.

 

[BVS]

In an ideal world, yes, skin color won't matter.

 

[Vincent Vega]

Yes, and I'm sure it will take us another at least decades to get rid of that.

Racism has been with us for centuries. And such things don't disappear from one day to another.
It's the same with antisemitism. It still is alive in every country, just to a lesser degree.
Neither the second world war could stop antisemitism, nor could the civil rights movement stop racism.

But at least both isn't that strong and accepted anymore.

 

[Justin24]

I wish the labeling or racist words would stop.

 

[Liesje]

The problem I have with labels is that it makes it so easy for people to stereotype and discriminate against an entire group of people based on a single attribute. This has gotten so out of hand, there are words for certain races that originally just referred to the race but now are loaded with very negative connotations. It's really pathetic.

However, I think it's also important to have some level of social and cultural identity. Sure there is a single human race, but if we over simplify it and leave it at that, what incentive is there to learn about the origins of various traditions and schools of thought, and experience different cultures?

What do you think, Justin? Often I see you referring to your Guatemalan heritage, which I think is fine, but are you asking for all of us to give that up?

 

[Justin24]

Thats a good question Liesje. hmmm I would have to think on that.

 

[financeguy]

Most people prefer their own race. Silly to argue otherwise.

 

[BVS]

Most people prefer their own race. Silly to argue otherwise.

In what way?

 

[financeguy]

In what way?

Most people prefer being around people of their own race. This is natural.

 

[Justin24]

Most people prefer being around people of their own race. This is natural.

But how did they end up that way. Was it due to segregation, does it have to do with language, cultural differences?

 

[Liesje]

But how did they end up that way. Was it due to segregation, does it have to do with language, cultural differences?

Mere Exposure Theory - "familiarity breeds liking", you are socialized with your on kind and simply prefer their company. It's not that the other races of people are lesser; you're just most comfortable with your own.

 

[trevster2k]

I agree with finance guy, it's a natural thing.

People are generally more comfortable with people who look like them. As a child, I had no role models in the mainstream media. Most non-white children had no dolls which looked like them. Many things in society affect a person's view of themselves while growing up. When I started seeing people similar to myself in my community or on tv, it made me more comfortable realizing I was not alone.

It is certainly possible as an adult to not "need" the companionship of people of the same race. I am of mixed race and have been uncomfortable around people of both my origin races cause I felt like I was viewed as the "other" by both groups. I would think "geeks","cool kids", "trekkies" "jocks" or any other group in society feels a natural affinity for similar groups. Just as initially, people of the same race feel the same affinity. This affinity is probably not that strong all the time but it exists.

 

[BVS]

Most people prefer being around people of their own race. This is natural.

It's the word "prefer" that I find interesting. Yes I know people prefer to be around those they can relate to and usually race often will reflect that, but does it go beyond that?

 

[phillyfan26]

It also starts with family. Much of your young life will be with family, generally people of one race, as is the common trend. Daily life is based around a family. With a family of one race, that makes a big difference.

 

[redhotswami]

It also starts with family. Much of your young life will be with family, generally people of one race, as is the common trend. Daily life is based around a family. With a family of one race, that makes a big difference.

and then there are us multiracial folk...

 

[phillyfan26]

and then there are us multiracial folk...

I'd imagine that's for the better. Natural acceptance of different races. This doesn't always happen for some. I'm just pointing out that in the times when this does not occur, it can be part of the problem.

 

[redhotswami]

I'd imagine that's for the better.

Ya know, it really varied actually. At home, like you said, I didn't think much of race. It was the outside world that told me. In school especially, the black students saying I wasn't black enough, and the latino students saying I wasn't latina enough. That made things difficult when it came to my personal identity development.

 

[trevster2k]

I'd imagine that's for the better. Natural acceptance of different races. This doesn't always happen for some. I'm just pointing out that in the times when this does not occur, it can be part of the problem.

Living as a multi-racial person in a pre-dominantly white community in the 70's and 80's sucked. I was the victim of racism during most of my childhood and youth. I don't look like my mother's family, and I didn't speak my father's native tongue so I didn't fully fit in with either side. I only fit in when I visit cities like Vancouver or Toronto where there is a huge ethnic population. Fit in meaning I am not the only one in the room who isn't white.

Today being a multi-ethnic person is better than it was in the past but there are still issues. It's like being in a tug of war between two cultures. When I was born, marrying outside your race was heavily frowned upon and my father was not the white person so that was extra baggage as he was not respected. My parents probably dealt with a lot of crap from idiots too. I do have great empathy for people who are discriminated against whether it be based on race, sexual orientation, gender, physical appearance or disability. I understand what is like to be discriminated against for just being different. I sometimes wonder if I would have this view were it not for the events in my past.

 

[u2fan628]

Birds of a feather,flock together.

 

[ntalwar]

Cliches .

 

[verte76]

Race shouldn't matter, but it's important to have a sense of culture and identity.

 

[yolland]

I agree with finance guy, it's a natural thing.

People are generally more comfortable with people who look like them. As a child, I had no role models in the mainstream media. Most non-white children had no dolls which looked like them. Many things in society affect a person's view of themselves while growing up. When I started seeing people similar to myself in my community or on tv, it made me more comfortable realizing I was not alone.

Isn't this really more about what "looks" are presumed to reveal, and a preference for those supposedly "revealed" traits (lifestyle, social loyalties, culture and customs, behavioral characteristics etc.), though--not really about preferring the "looks" themselves? Maybe that's what you were getting at anyway, I just wasn't sure. And true, over time those kinds of assumptions can take on an inertia of their own, to the point where it gets hard to distinguish what precisely the source of the tension is. One thing I've come to appreciate over time about India is the much, much lesser extent to which "race" as we tend to measure it (skin color + facial features) is presumed to signify anything meaningful about a person. It certainly wouldn't be true to say there's no skin-color hierarchy there--e.g., Bollywood's oft-noted preference for the 'more beautiful' "Aryan"-complected-and-featured actors--but on the whole and as a generalization, religion, socioeconomic class and, to varying degrees, caste and language are the divides that matter there, the ones stereotypes tend to cluster around; they just don't tend to fall into that reflexive, half-conscious "This person doesn't look like my 'group,' therefore they don't belong in it" line of thinking that's so common here. I've heard people say similar things about certain Latin American countries as well. Of course these are all highly ethnically/ancestrally heterogenous countries compared to most; that probably plays into it too.

It's always very interesting to me to hear "mixed-race" people's perspective on their experiences here, and to a certain extent it does strike a chord with me. I'm not "mixed race", but I can somewhat relate to what it's like to have that unsettling feeling that you don't fully belong to any of the boxes the society around you seems to insist on having everyone fit into; it was like that for my family when and where I grew up.

Finding comfort in seeing people who "look like you" on TV or in your community, I can certainly understand, though again I tend to think that's probably more a question of social validation--we aren't invisible, we aren't unfit to be seen embodying onscreen some version of what it is to be Canadian, American, etc.--than of "looks" themselves. Of course it adds its own inflection to that when you're the only one of your assigned "type" in your area, with all the social baggage that comes with that.

 

[ntalwar]

One thing I've come to appreciate over time about India is the much, much lesser extent to which "race" as we tend to measure it (skin color + facial features) is presumed to signify anything meaningful about a person.

True - economically at least, it's not an issue. The wealth is spread more evenly across people of different skin colors. E.g. the 36 billionaires in India (per Forbes list) are quite diverse.

 

[trevster2k]

Regarding "looks", I think children do not understand the complexities of self-esteem, acceptance and coping mechanisms to deal with the stresses of life. But when the ideal image of beauty, success, wealth and so on portrayed in society and amongst the community around you is a white woman or a white man, and you aren't even the same skin colour, it has a huge effect on a person who has to grow up in that society. Skin colour and facial structure is one thing people can judge you on without even talking to you. Without reinforcement from family and friends that you are also included, this would be a tough world to live in.

Regarding India not using race, it seems different since they obviously are using other factors within their own relatively homogeneous society to create separate classes. Similar to how a predominantly white community creates classes of fat people, rich people, athletic people, geeks, cool people, and so on. That is a different type of classing. I imagine any children who are not Indian growing up in India would have similar experiences as myself being the minority in a different culture.

Certainly social validation is an aspect which comes with "looks". It was a big deal when an African-American breaks ground like when Denzel Washington and Halley Berry won Academy Awards. Why? Cause it removed the stigma that certain races aren't able to do certain things. Black people are the first minority to become "mainstream" in entertainment. Hispanics are also making strides getting recognized in music and film whereas Asians and Indians are just starting to gain a footing. A mayor or famous athlete being a minority is also something which reinforces one's own value too. It's not just tv but all aspects of society and growing up in the 70's and 80's, minorities were not always being represented in all avenues of life.

This validation is important because no matter how many times your parent tells you how pretty you are or how smart you are, every time someone uses an ethnic slur, it takes a part of your soul until you reach the point of understanding how to deal with it. Children don't have that capacity hence the importance of "looks" and seeing people with the same "looks" achieve acceptance and normality in society. I have spent most of my life with people asking if I knew karate. Once a week listening to strangers degrade me with slurs. Some people didn't like me just because of my skin colour and slanty eyes and they never had even spoken to me. Having difficulty fitting in a group because you feel out of place is something everyone deals with in life whether it be for your personality or likes or dislikes. Dealing with it just based on race which is a permanent trait is a different experience.

I think people who aren't minorities have a difficult time understanding what it is like to grow up being unique but not in a positive sense being harassed by others. I like to think it is better now for kids then it used to be but I still see discrimination everywhere.

 

[sulawesigirl4]

I really appreciate your contributions to this discussion, trevster and redhotswami. I've been giving a lot of thought to the very real possibility that I will be raising children of mixed race. If my boyfriend and I ever do have kids, not only will they be half black-half white, but also from two completely different cultures (Malian and pseudo-American...more about that later), and speak three languages. I've been thinking about where I would want to raise them. In some ways, I think I'd prefer to bring them back to Africa because from what I've seen the people there are laid back about the whole thing. Even if we don't live in Mali, I could see myself working somewhere in the developing world as part of the expat community. A lot of the people I've met in that world have partners of various ethnicities...you see a lot of kids of different racial mixes. Still, I can't help but wonder how to be a good parent and to give one's child the support structure they would need to develop a really good sense of self and of belonging if you yourself can't really identify with them.

I myself was raised as a white kid in an Asian country and to this day I've never felt like I "fit" anywhere. Even when I am in the States and racially in the majority, I don't feel culturally like I really understand or accept what is going on around me. My parents are mono-cultural and as much as they understand the idea of "third-culture kids" (which is apparently what they call us these days), they can't really relate. I think that in the end, I've accepted that I'll never be truly at home anywhere, and therefore I'm free to travel and live anywhere.

 

[yolland]

Originally posted by trevster2k

Thanks for the thoughtful response, and I'm deeply sorry you've had so many of those kinds of experiences in your lifetime. Experiencing that kind of social isolation has got to be intensely painful. I completely agree with you about the importance of having positive images of your racial group out there, and the difference that can make when you've encountered so many disparaging remarks ranging from racial slurs to more "benign, innocent" kinds of assumptions.

In my previous post I was more reacting to the classification of this, particularly the "looks alone" aspect, as "a natural thing" and what I took that to imply, than I was trying to define what the experience of "racial preferences" is "really" like (from both sides). I brought up India not because I see 'Indian society' as some extraordinary exemplar of racial harmony, I certainly wouldn't say that, but rather because it comes to mind as an example of a country where 'race' as we understand it plays a much less salient role in social hierarchies. And they are most definitely not 'homogeneous' in the way most Western countries are; take a look sometime at late-19th-through-to-mid-20th-century (Western) ethnographers' byzantine breakdowns of Indians by 'race,' then consider the enormous numbers of Indians who belong to each of those categories and how readily they intermarry "despite" that, because *as a generalization*, for them, caste--not the color of your prospective spouse's skin or the shape of their facial features, which vary tremendously throughout India--is the distinction that matters there. Of course it's significant that it was Western ethnographers mapping those distinctions out, but that was kind of my point. I can accept the idea that institutionalized hierarchies of some form or another are 'human nature', and that bona fide cultural gaps can be tough to negotiate is just common sense; but I don't accept that institutionalized racism as we know it is 'natural', and it seems to me that the experiences you're recounting are precisely that.

At the risk of doggedly belaboring my point, I'll try expanding this a little further...

I imagine any children who are not Indian growing up in India would have similar experiences as myself being the minority in a different culture.

Children who are unfamiliar and unconversant with whatever the local version of Indian culture is would certainly encounter many adverse experiences, yes. And children of certain racial groups per our definitions, especially 'black' and 'white', would likely encounter significant prejudice based on that alone. But is this really analogous to being a native-born racial minority in a country like the US, Australia or Canada? I suppose for many, if you're first-generation and your parent(')s(') native culture was the predominant influence in your home, then yes, it could well be. It just seems to me like adverse experiences based on appearance alone are something different, though. Maybe it's just naive on my part to perceive any distinction between negative attitudes towards Canadians of Asian ancestry and negative attitudes towards Asian immigrants some Canadians may have, but this has always been a type of racism that incenses me, and I do agree Asians are often among the hardest-hit by it, that 'foreignness' is somehow inheritable and that stigma (which of course shouldn't exist to begin with, but that's another story--I *think*) gets passed on to subsequent generations based on looks alone. I realize this may sound nonsensical, it even sounds contradictory to me just rereading that sentence, but at the point where we're talking about people assuming you know karate or dropping racial slurs simply because you look Asian, then it seems to me we're crossing the threshold from xenophobia to institutionalized racism. And they're interrelated, granted, but...put it this way, if I hear someone I know making disparaging comments about some Indian immigrants they know--based on accent or expressive gestures or other aspects of communicative style, say--then that upsets me, but I 'understand' it to the point that, OK, here's social behavior that reads as disconcerting and unexpected, I can kind of understand where that reaction comes from, and here are some explanations I can attempt to offer from experience that might help them make better sense of what they're seeing. Whereas if they're making disparaging comments about a fellow, born-and-raised American of Indian ancestry, someone who speaks with their accent and was socialized through the same school system and is conversant with all the same 'standard American' cultural references they are, even if they're also actively engaged with their Indian cultural heritage in various ways...well, in that case there's really nothing I have to say to them, other than Frankly, you're just being bigoted here, and no I don't understand why you're endorsing these ugly ideas at all.

Having difficulty fitting in a group because you feel out of place is something everyone deals with in life whether it be for your personality or likes or dislikes. Dealing with it just based on race which is a permanent trait is a different experience.

I certainly agree with this, though for clarification's sake, that wasn't the kind of thing I meant with regard to my own upbringing. Things I would stop short of labeling 'race'-related, as in many ways that's inaccurate, but racialized thinking most definitely played a role in it.

 

[Caroni]

Most people prefer their own race. Silly to argue otherwise.

I don´t berlieve people likes more people of their same race because they have the same skin color, I think is because they usually have the same backgrounds, cultures and similar ways of thinking. My country has a history of inmigrants from all over the world, and we have learned to love each other as brothers, in fact we are xenophylics (I wonder if that word exists )

 

[Caroni]

and then there are us multiracial folk...

Keanu Reeves is multiracial


Love multiracial, Do you have a brother