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Post by asianwhite on Nov 29, 2008 19:01:43 GMT -5
Aye Fu**ing man to that Lola (thumbs up) Well I suppose people like Tiger Woods and Hines Ward are living another reality then? Your kind of train of thought is exactly what supported slavery and racist attitudes. You claim things are so stagnant but if we look at history it's been the exact opposite. The only thing that remains constant as many historians and professionals in other fields like to say is "CHANGE." When I look at Obama I see a mulatto man and I know a lot of others who do too. He may not identify as it but hey that's his personal choice. I still question his validity as a "representative" of mixed people...puhleez..you don't speak for me or the rest of America that is shifting it's view towards embracing biracial/mixed people. By the way I'm not shying away from anything. And why can't I embrace both sides? Just cause you like to "one drop" yourself, doesn't mean I or many others on here should. Are you white by the way...you picture looks it..lol Me a one dropist? Sure thing buddy. I just deal with reality. The overwhelming majority of people will lump you with one race. That's just how it is. When Obama hails a Taxi cab, they don't think, 'here's a mulatto man'...most people think 'here's a black man'. I'm a one dropist? One drop is a REALITY in America. Obama realizes that. Obama has acknowledged being mixed, but he'll identify himself as African American because the term is general in referring to people with African blood. I'm just living in reality. Most Americans don't think of you as half white half Asian. most will lump you with one race, and it will most likely be your MINORITY race. Rather than shying away with it, embrace it. If you're being oppressed because somebody sees you as Asian, then join their side.
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Post by Paddy on Nov 29, 2008 19:42:22 GMT -5
It's all about perception. What's there to argue about? You chose to be what you want to be. People assume you are whatever they assume you to be - usually based on stereotypes. (And don't forget that stereotypes exist for a reason)
Who's right? There are no absolutes. It's all about perception.
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Post by joha87 on Nov 30, 2008 3:56:27 GMT -5
but BTW there are half-blacks who can pass as white or at least are rather fair, it happens. Yeah, I have a mulattoe friend who's like this. The only way you could tell he was half-black was by his features, which still retained some Euro features. Back in the day, many fair-skinned mulattoes would "pass" as white to avoid discrimination. Personally, I have no problem with Obama identifying as an African-American. I mean, it's his right to claim himself as African-American, just as it's the right for many EAs to claim themselves as Asian-Americans. We mixed suffer the same discrimination in the United States due to the one drop rule and are usually perceived as the same. I also don't feel that Obama tries to hide his bi-racialness at all, considering that he even wrote a book about it and pretty much everyone in the nation knows about it. I think the sad part was that he had to combat the perception of being too white and too removed from the typical African-American's experience at all. Of course, race relations in nowhere near the top of his priorities coming into the White House with all the crisises we have now, but I feel confident that Obama has the right attitude and perspective on race relations. However, I don't feel that Zapp's post is fair at all to EAs'. I don't know about the OP's history, so it seems the accusation of white-washed is just that, an accusation. And another thing, what right do we have to criticize so-called "white-washed EAs". Many EAs, I included, have experienced discrimination and rejection from our Asian half. I've seen EA members talk about the stereotype of the EA who tries to act too Asian when they're pretty clueless but this actually flies against my experience. Most other half-Koreans I knew growing up, didn't want anything to do with Korean people. Why would they want to have anything to do with the community that caused them pain. Unlike the African-American community, many parts of the Asian-American community haven't been so accepting of their mixed and the "white-washed" EAs show that. It's entirely our choice to choose to interact with our Asian half on our own initiative. No EA should be beholden to bow and scrape with Asians just to be "accepted". EAs shouldn't be forced to qualify themselves as different from "some white dude w/ an asian fetish" just to hang out with Asians.
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Post by Altan on Nov 30, 2008 10:58:51 GMT -5
I think also being Black and being a mixed African American has a lot to do where they are socio-economically in the US. And who they are predominantly around. Are they more in a White community or are they in a Black one and what is their socio-economically situation.
To say your a mutt and a mixed black you are probably in the more mobile White community but to say your Black you're probably in the lower-income Black community.
I've never heard a lower-income light-skinned African-America (multi-cult) call themselves a Mutt or anything else but just identify with Black. Now upper-mobile light-skinned African Americans (multi-cults) I have.
When I went to school there were a lot of mixing (miscegenation) going on (I'm from San Francisco...it's a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah) with Blacks I met....but I always noticed that the Ghetto Blacks that were mixed were Black and identified as such even though they had some parent on the other side...whether Latino/Asian/White or other.
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Post by loloduffs on Nov 30, 2008 16:35:51 GMT -5
Oh really now... Your delivery needs a bit of work.
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Post by blunthammer on Dec 2, 2008 23:12:31 GMT -5
Really? Now why is that?? I assume you're being serious but in a narcistic way of course.. He's certainly a role model for left-leaning megalomaniacs like me.
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Post by LaFace on Dec 3, 2008 1:51:02 GMT -5
I personally don't think it's wrong to refer to someone who is mixed as one of their ethnicities, eg Obama as black, because he isn't necessarily 'less' African American than his mono-racial peers, he just happens to have an additional background (of course the validity of the appropriateness of thi depends on the individual's context).
In his case though, it would obviously be more accurate (and less ignorant) to refer to him as black and white, or the equivalent of this.
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Post by loloduffs on Dec 3, 2008 16:49:39 GMT -5
Well then based on that train of thought it is perfectly fine to call him caucasian american too right? I mean if you say NO, then you're totally contradicting yourself. I personally don't think it's wrong to refer to someone who is mixed as one of their ethnicities, eg Obama as black, because he isn't necessarily 'less' African American than his mono-racial peers, he just happens to have an additional background (of course the validity of the appropriateness of thi depends on the individual's context). In his case though, it would obviously be more accurate (and less ignorant) to refer to him as black and white, or the equivalent of this.
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Post by jefe on Dec 3, 2008 23:45:23 GMT -5
^I honestly think Halle Berry looks more white than black. Obviously mixed, but to me the Euro sticks out more. I don't understand entirely why half black Americans always tout themselves as black. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but it's like they usually completely ignore the rest of themselves. Maybe because they don't want to be considered whitewashed by paying any attention to the part of them that's not black? Nearly every African-American I met admitted to me that they were part European. I am sure many would consider expressing that, but it is white people, not simply blacks, who touted mixed European / African people as black (or as colored, negro, even "high yellow" -- what they used to be called in previous generations). The only mixed European / African people that touted their white ancestry are those that can actually hide their African ancestry and "pass" as white. Indeed, the phenomenon was so pervasive that as many "white" Americans are part African as "African" Americans are part white. So, I don't think it is an issue that they do not want to be considered to be white-washed (HOWEVER, this WAS an issue for Barack Obama -- as someone raised in a white family), it is that for hundreds of years, whites have refused to acknowledge that they share ancestors with their "black" brethren. Indeed, what spread the European ancestry throughout the African-American population was only partially due to Caucasian / Negro interrelationships -- the major factor was that mulattoes were denied the right to mate with whites, so spread their European ancestry among each other, and into the population that had more African-Ancestry. We are so used to seeing blacks in the USA that are part European, and part-European black is what looks normal to everyone. I think Obama looks clearly mulatto -- a combination of his parents (he surely sticks out as much around his kenyan relatives as we do among our Asian relatives), but we are used to identifying mulattoes as "BLACK" that it is easy for us to ignore his Caucasian background. Eric Holder and Susan Rice are also very much part Caucasian (actually, I think they look somewhat more Caucasian to me), but because both of their parents are of African-descent we tend not to think of them as biracial. To me, I think that Obama has essentially a white cultural background and heritage. He father and his father's family had almost no *direct* influence on his childhood experiences and his father's family was not even American. And he was much much more close and intimate with his white family members. Indeed, as someone who grew up in Anacostia, SE Wash. DC and PG County, MD, I think I had much more day to day contact with and awareness of African-American society and culture growing up than Obama did and I witnessed the segregation and desegregation period with my own eyes. My white family lived many hundreds of miles away and did not welcome their mixed race relatives with open arms, yet I saw my nearby Chinese family daily. I cannot help but find Obama much more highly connected to his white background than I could ever hope or aspire to be. He is not at all like the people I grew up with in SE Washington and Prince George's County. "African-American" was a new experience that he explored on his own AFTER he left home. Indeed, it would be like an EA who grew up with a single white mom and her parents in a mixed black neighborhood in Arkansas, and then moved to a large east or west coast city after university and ensconced himself in Chinatown and Asian American activist groups or something.
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Post by straylight on Dec 4, 2008 0:58:44 GMT -5
i think it'd be hard to say he's connected to being typically "white" per se. his mother was quite the explorer, in both how she viewed cultures, and professionally -- she was an anthropologist.. well traveled, had relations with barack's father, a kenyan, and then married an indonesian, who was obama's stepdad. he may have not grown up with american black culture, but it's not like he grew up in kansas or anything either and then after that, he discovered a new grounding in his identity through people he admired -- one of which was martin luther king. and so by extension, obama is connected to the black community, even if idealistically.
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Post by fubarsticks on Dec 4, 2008 12:46:21 GMT -5
Very interesting take, I agree with most that.. ^I honestly think Halle Berry looks more white than black. Obviously mixed, but to me the Euro sticks out more. I don't understand entirely why half black Americans always tout themselves as black. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but it's like they usually completely ignore the rest of themselves. Maybe because they don't want to be considered whitewashed by paying any attention to the part of them that's not black? Nearly every African-American I met admitted to me that they were part European. I am sure many would consider expressing that, but it is white people, not simply blacks, who touted mixed European / African people as black (or as colored, negro, even "high yellow" -- what they used to be called in previous generations). The only mixed European / African people that touted their white ancestry are those that can actually hide their African ancestry and "pass" as white. Indeed, the phenomenon was so pervasive that as many "white" Americans are part African as "African" Americans are part white. So, I don't think it is an issue that they do not want to be considered to be white-washed (HOWEVER, this WAS an issue for Barack Obama -- as someone raised in a white family), it is that for hundreds of years, whites have refused to acknowledge that they share ancestors with their "black" brethren. Indeed, what spread the European ancestry throughout the African-American population was only partially due to Caucasian / Negro interrelationships -- the major factor was that mulattoes were denied the right to mate with whites, so spread their European ancestry among each other, and into the population that had more African-Ancestry. We are so used to seeing blacks in the USA that are part European, and part-European black is what looks normal to everyone. I think Obama looks clearly mulatto -- a combination of his parents (he surely sticks out as much around his kenyan relatives as we do among our Asian relatives), but we are used to identifying mulattoes as "BLACK" that it is easy for us to ignore his Caucasian background. Eric Holder and Susan Rice are also very much part Caucasian (actually, I think they look somewhat more Caucasian to me), but because both of their parents are of African-descent we tend not to think of them as biracial. To me, I think that Obama has essentially a white cultural background and heritage. He father and his father's family had almost no *direct* influence on his childhood experiences and his father's family was not even American. And he was much much more close and intimate with his white family members. Indeed, as someone who grew up in Anacostia, SE Wash. DC and PG County, MD, I think I had much more day to day contact with and awareness of African-American society and culture growing up than Obama did and I witnessed the segregation and desegregation period with my own eyes. My white family lived many hundreds of miles away and did not welcome their mixed race relatives with open arms, yet I saw my nearby Chinese family daily. I cannot help but find Obama much more highly connected to his white background than I could ever hope or aspire to be. He is not at all like the people I grew up with in SE Washington and Prince George's County. "African-American" was a new experience that he explored on his own AFTER he left home. Indeed, it would be like an EA who grew up with a single white mom and her parents in a mixed black neighborhood in Arkansas, and then moved to a large east or west coast city after university and ensconced himself in Chinatown and Asian American activist groups or something.
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cm
Junior Member
Posts: 68
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Post by cm on Dec 4, 2008 23:35:20 GMT -5
I'm still waiting for somebody to propose a better role model.
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Post by jefe on Dec 5, 2008 0:03:46 GMT -5
Maybe someone can nominate themselves.
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Post by Paddy on Dec 5, 2008 5:52:48 GMT -5
Han Suyin
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Post by Subuatai on Dec 5, 2008 6:07:16 GMT -5
There is a mixed Tsahar/Celt (dad inner-Mongol, mum Scottish) who I'm good friends with who has merged his two identities rather well, fancies himself the Mongol Scotsman, or the Mongol 007 ;D
But in truth, from what I've experienced, each of us "mutts" have difference experiences with mixed heritage. So we all have to find our own role models that we can relate to.
For me, I was raised with one identity -> Mongol, also Turanian in some circles. Central-Asian cultures tend to absorb mixed people very well. However, then you can have my friend who is not only connected to his CA side, but his Celtic side. The two ethnicities however also share many cultural similarities. An Irish friend also said to me "There's not much difference between Irish and Mongols, both don't know when to stop drinking! And both don't know when to stop fighting!"
Then you can have completely different cultures like for example, Aboriginal and Chinese. The mixed person may side one or the other, or accept both his heritages and learn to merge them, or become his or her own individual, or simply stay confused as hell.
Each of our experiences are different.
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