Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2001 21:37:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: “Jaime Andres”
Subject: Letter to the Editor
I totally agree with any one wanting to claim mixed heritage. Why limit yourself to part of your history? The whole concept of being catalogued as Black or White is wrong. The moment you discriminate against Blacks or Whites you are wrong too. In the USA one usually has to use such identifications as white or black because most don’t know their background so they use a generic phenotypic category. But Black and White is just a social division, not a true biological one. The moment you are convinced that either Blacks or Whites are part of a problem/issue because of their heredity then you are already wrong. The problem is not about skin color, genetics or anything like that. The acts of a group are based on social conditioning from childhood. The perceptions of groups are just ascriptions to the group based on extrapolation from the encounters you have had. There is no universal black group or any universal white group. There are many ethnic groups that are predominantly light skinned or predominantly dark skinned, but there are also ethnic groups that have all kinds of shades. There is not one viable definition of racial category that defines “black” Negroid, or “white” Caucasoid. This concept was ditched a long time ago. The only people who still argue for these divisions are forensic anthropologists (and racists of course). Forensic anthropologists study physical attributes!!! Of course they would be need physical categories!!! But physical attributes do not define race. Race is a nation, a people, and a group that share a common heritage/ancestry. There is no monolithic “white” or “black” culture that does this. There is an African-American Culture. And some African-Americans might have more genetically in common with a European that an African. They just look more like the Africans because the dominant genotypes created a phenotype that was similar. That doesn’t guarantee genetic similarity. Ethiopians have been found to be genetically closer to European-Mediterranean groups than to Sub-Saharan groups. The color of the person has nothing to do with how that person will act. His life experiences do.
The Biology of Skin Color: Black and White
http://www.discover.com/feb_01/featbiology.html
Did you know that the population of Africa is more diverse biologically than that of any other continent?
Race Mythology and Anthropology: Population, Language, and Culture
An Anthropological View of Race, I: The Evolution of Skin Color
http://anthropology.about.com/science/anthropology/library/weekly/aa030600a.htm
An Anthropological View of Race, II: The Social Definition of Race
http://anthropology.about.com/science/anthropology/library/weekly/aa031300a.htm
Endemic Location and Racial Characteristics
http://www.lifesci.utexas.edu/courses/mcmurry/spring98/14/UericaW.html
Black ideology is the black child’s most debilitating burden
http://www.nextcity.com/main/town/7reading.htm
Come join us at:
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/colorblind
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/racedebate
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/findingracismsroots
Editor: Jaime, I’ve seen your postings all over Yahoo! Clubs. Thank you for including links to The Multiracial Activist and particularly for sending so many interested readers to Dr. C. Loring Brace’s work A Four Letter Word Called “Race”.
Editor: Jaime, I’ve seen your postings all over Yahoo! Clubs. Thank you for including links to The Multiracial Activist and particularly for sending so many interested readers to Dr. C. Loring Brace’s work A Four Letter Word Called “Race”.