"The practice of racism (sic) constitutes a crime for which no bail will be permitted and which may not be authorized, punishable by prison as statutorily prescribed."- - Brazilian Constitution, Art. V, XLII.
Getty Images. Malcolm Gladwell experienced color-aroused antagonism when he grew an Afro.
The Root and Malcolm Gladwell report that, simply by Gladwell changing his hair to an Afro style, his new color-associated physical characteristic was the cue that aroused antagonistic ideation, emotion and behavior from societal authorities such as airport security and the police.
Malcolm Gladwell, author of four best-sellers, including Blinkand What the Dog Saw, is fascinated by explaining everyday experiences.
Blink explores how humans make snap judgments (and how often we can be wrong). In What the Dog Saw, he questions "false certainties" -- things we think we know.
What does hair have to do with it? In a recent interview with CNN, the biracial writer explains that when he grew his out and "began to look more like people's stereotype of a black male," he experienced "a striking transformation in the way the world viewed [him]," including getting stopped by police and when he went through customs at the airport.
"Even though I was exactly the same person, once I had longer hair, the world saw me as being profoundly different," he said.
Blink shows that a color-associated physical characteristic (hair in the case) is sufficient to arouse ideation, emotion and behavior in others. No wonder that Black women straighten their hair. Would we have them grow Afros and braids and then face the constant color-aroused antagonism associated with color-associated physical characteristics?
To try and add some scientific substance to the question, instead of becoming hopelessly confused and chasing our tails in "racial" circles, I posted the following:
francislholland I find it most interesting that the writer describes this woman as "racially ambiguous". "Race", as a matter of science, does NOT exist and it never did. The reason that her "race" is so hard to determine is that "race' was never a scientific reality. It's like saying the height and weight of the Easter Bunny and Santa's reindeer are "ambiguous." They are ambiguous because they don't exist.
"DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity. People who have lived in the same geographic region for many generations may have some alleles in common, but no allele will be found in all members of one population and in no members of any other."
In other words, the Human Genome Project has proven that, as a matter of scientific fact, that which we call "race" does not exist as a matter of biology, and so all references to "race" are references to a fallacy.
"With very rare exceptions, all of us in the US are immigrants. We bring with us a subset of genes from our homelands, and for many Americans, often first-generation but more commonly second-generation, the plural noun 'homelands' is appropriate. From this perspective, the most immediately obvious characteristic of 'race' is that describing most of us as Caucasian, Asian or African is far too simple. Despite attempts by the US Census Bureau to expand its definitions, the term 'race' does not describe most of us with the subtlety and complexity required to capture and appreciate our genetic diversity. Unfortunately, this oversimplification has had many tragic effects. Therefore, we need to start with the science . . . "
No vapid and anti-scientific discussion of her "race" can change the color of her skin, while her skin color does not fit within hardened sociological notions of "racial" extremes. We cannot assign to her membership in the "black race" or the "white race" because those "races" simply do not exist now and never did in the past.
Actual scientists might have divided humans into subspecies based on skin color, hair color, height, and other characteristics, except that it has been found to be impossible to find any given genetic material in one human group that is not present to some extent in another human group. Hence the "racial ambiguity". It is far more scientific to simply acknowledge that sub-races of the human race simply do not exist, and even if they did exist it would not be possible to distinguish and predict their genetic differences based on their skin color.
The truth is that the woman above has a skin color that is not easily named within a binomial "race by skin color" social system. Let's adjust the social system to the science rather than continuing in futility to try to adjust the science to the social system. That is what the author above admitted s/he was doing when s/he tried to assign a bisque-colored woman to a "white race" or "black race".
Others can and will stick with their "race"-based understanding of the science of human genetics. However, human geneticists of the Human Genome Project have already announced that humans will never fit into neat "races" based on their skin color. Just as phrenology is no longer a serious topic of science, I predict that "race" will have been replaced in science and elsewhere with much more subtle and useful understandings based on the human genome within the next fifty years. "Race" is headed toward the trash basket.
There can be no such thing as "historical racism" because "race" itself does not exist. This is simply the finding of the most recent indisputable scientific understanding of the human genome. There is no basis in science for the belief that we can group members of the human species into distinct "racial" subgroups that that can be identified by skin color.
There is no genetic material that can be found in all white people but no Black people, and there is likewise no genetic material that can be found consistently in Black people but that cannot be found in people with white skin. So the human genome simply does not and will not permit us to scientifically group humans "racially," based on skin color or geographical region of origin.
We Blacks may be more similar genetically to the "white" man across the street than we are to our Black daughter's new Black fiance. This is what genomic science tells us, but during slavery we could not fight the belief in "race" using genomic science because the human genes, on which genomic science is based, had not even been discover. They had not been thoroughly mapped, as they are today.
If you disagree that you may be genetically more similar to your white neighbor, then ask your self whether you would prefer to have a blood transfusion from you white neighbor or your daughter's Black husband. If you can answer that question without knowing the blood types of each of the potential donors, then your belief in "race" has tied your mind into so many knots that you may never be able to free yourself from them.
Once we lived in scientific ignorance and the belief in "race" because we had to do so if only because every aspect of American culture and law reinforced the notion of "race." Now, with the advances in the understanding of DNA and genomic science, we live in scientific ignorance only if we choose to do so.
There have been historical efforts to dominate and enslave others of the same skin color and/or different colors, often based in an "us vs. them" mentality, with dividing lines associated with geographical region of heritage, language, and social class .
But "historical racism" cannot exist because "race" itself does not exist. "Race" is the most discussed scientific fallacy that has no basis whatsoever in science. What do exist are skin color, skin color groups, and geographically and/or linguistically based culture groups. And some people and groups still have stubborn but real interests in the continued belief in the existence of "race." Just open the newspaper on any given day and you will find hundreds of such people, some of whom and naively ignorant, but many of whom believe they benefit from the concept of "race."
When Black bloggers, for example, are in agreement with white supremacist groups on a matter of science so significant as the belief in race, then these diametrically opposed parties both need to wonder why the agree one something so fundamental but find everything else the other groups believe to be repugnant. If you are a Black person who believes in the existence of "race", you need to ask yourself why you agree with white supremacist groups on a question so fundamental.
Francis
Many whites and Blacks will ask themselves whether the above video is "racist", and whether it is an example of Duncan Hines "racism". First, let me say that I am not convinced that the above ad was even made by Duncan Hines, but others will surely investigate that. Eater.com says it's for real, and has even identified the director and some of his other commercials in notoriously poor taste:
Cupcakes, once a delightful source of sugary indulgence, later a cliched trend much derided on blogs like this one, have sunk to a new low: racial controversy. A video for Duncan Hines' Amazing Glazes has angered viewers for its depiction of, uh, cupcakes in black face. Racist cupcakes? Facing criticism, Duncan Hines pulled the video from YouTube. But we managed to get a copy of the video, below. Judge for yourself:
Duncan Hines' Hip Hop Cupcakes. [Photo: Duncan Hines]
It should also be noted that this is not the first time director Josh Binder has been criticized for creating questionable advertising. In the past, he has filmed an ad for Western wear that features a cowboy lassoing up two ladies, and another that spoofs samurai movies with loaves of bread.
To make a decision about whether the above cartoon is "racist", whomever it was that made it, we would first need to agree about the definition of "racist". There is no more agreement among Americans now about what constitutes "racism", even after fifty years of continuous effort.
Let's ask another question instead. Is the above advertisement an example of antagonistic color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior? For example, was the video conceived with an awareness of its color content? I don't think anyone will assert that the makers of this ad were unaware that chocolate is brown, or that the chocolate frosting has been used here to radically change the color of the cupcakes. We are inherently discussion color here.
Chocolate frosting is often brown, so that in itself does not cause a problem. But when dark-brown monkey-like talking faces are added to the frosting, we have to ask ourselves, "Is there ideation here that is associated with brown skin color?
When anyone takes a vanilla-colored cup cake and turns the surface brown they are acting on color-aroused ideation, unless the change of color is an utter accident, which is clearly not the case here.
It's quite apparent here, when these animated brown faces begin to talk, color-associated ideation is at hand. Color exists. The nature of the color-aroused ideation can be debated, but the fact that there is color-aroused ideation cannot be debated. The advertisement is about coloring cupcakes brown. That behavior cannot occur without color-aroused and associated ideation. When you turn something that was vanilla-colored into something that is deep brown colored, that is indicative of color-aroused ideation. (If you paint your car blue, that is indicative of color-aroused ideation as well.)
Once we agree that color-aroused ideation is present, in an ad that is inherently about color, we need to identify the nature of the color-aroused ideation. The ideation seems to be that, "It is funny when cupcakes turn monkey-faced, begin to talk and allude to old stereotypes about Black people."
What is the substance of the color-aroused ideation, when cupcakes turn brown and then have monkey-like lips? Are these dark brown monkeys just funny brown monkey faces, or are they an allusion to Black people and to white people's history of drawing Blacks with enormous outsized lips, enormous eyes and idiotic expressions?
Does some emotion enter the picture after the color-aroused ideation that is inherent in the ad? The people who prepared and published this video appear to engage in mirth, which is a sense of funniness that causes people to laugh--if they see the humor. The makers of this video experience funniness when they see this, and they experience mirth. The ideational premises in this video are that Black people look like monkeys or can be made to look like monkeys. In addition, there is the ideational belief that laughing at brown monkeys that look like caricatures of Black people is funny.
Here, we have color-associated ideation that led to color aroused emotion and behavior, i.e. the quite intentional presentation of these monkeys in a way that alludes to the presentation of Blacks as monkey-looking that goes back to the earliest superiority and white people's humor in the United States and elsewhere. One only need compare these images to others from the nineteen-forties to see that these images historically have been used to debase Blacks while laughing at us at our expense. The inhuman characteristics of the monkey-faces intends to dehumanize all Black people, by associating these inhuman monkey-like talking cupcakes with a caricature of all people whose skin is brown or who are members of "the Black People".
I think the above paragraphs have succeeded in demonstrating that the advertisement arouses and reflects ideation about color and about skin color, when the talking monkeys have brown skin. (There are red, white, gray and yellow monkeys in nature, but the makers of this cartoon chose dark brown as the color for the monkeys.) Moreover, the production and publication of this video demonstrates a belief that ridiculing Black people is an acceptable and even preferable form of humor, and an acceptable way to arouse mirth and ridicule in the watching public, since there were so many other ways they could have used chocolate on these cupcakes other than making talking semi-human dark brown monkey faces of them.
All of this color-aroused ideation and emotion would have made no difference to Black people and the public in general, but for the behavior of producing this commercial and placing it on the airwaves. What we see here are the three individual components of what others call "racism": (1) ideation (ridiculing monkeys and Black people will be humorous) which ideation leads to the (2) emotion (of feeling funniness and mirth, in this case); and then, finally, (3) the behavior of putting a video together on the basis of this ideation and emotion, which brings us to the entire scope of the tripartite problem: color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior.
If we asked whether the above was "racist" we would never come to a consensus, because we haven't even come to a consensus about what "racism" consists of. However, when we look to see whether there is color-aroused ideation, there clearly is. The color-aroused emotion of mirth is clearly intended to be aroused, and perhaps many other emotions about which I could only speculate. (Discussions of color-arousal are scientific discussions where there is no place or use for speculation.) Finally, the making of this commercial and its placement in media channels is the behavior that will cause Duncan Hines so much grief, even if Duncan Hines does not turn out to be the responsible party.
The value of looking at the three individual components of color aroused ideation, emotion and behavior is (1) that we are able to look for each component scientifically, and (2) it is possible to realize that it was not in the ideation or the emotion that got Duncan Hines got into trouble here, but it was (3) the behavior of placing this video for public consumption.
As many of us have realized, people of all skin colors engage in ideation and emotion with respect to people of their own and others' skin colors, but much of this ideation and emotion is not obvious until it manifests itself in color-aroused behavior. The persistence of color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior may be due to the difficulty humans have in their efforts (if they make any effort) to prevent their ideation and emotion from becoming the basis of their behavior.
It may also be that whites are playing a game with Blacks by insisting that they cannot determine what is "racist" and what is not. If so, then using more empirical and objective measures may spoil the fun of a lot of color-aroused antagonists who claim not to know that their behavior is "racist".
Is the above video "racist"? I have no desire to wander into such an intellectual thicket that ends in an impenetrable morass, because I have already determined, in a methodical way, that the above advertisement is an example of antagonistic color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior. That alone is sufficient reason to wish that the video be off of the airways.
The human species definitely exists, but scientific genomic research has shown that there are no "races" or subspecies within the human species. Since DNA human genome mapping shows that there simply are no subspecies among the human species, it is therefore obvious that there are no subspecies who could be identified by their skin color.
Genomic scientists have discovered that, in many cases, people of different colors have more in common genetically with people of other skin colors than they have in common with others of the same skin color.
Science has proved that the hypothesis of the existence of "races" or subspecies among humans is an anachronistic and anti-empirical, anti-scientific fallacy.
Just as previous generations of humans insisted that the world was flat until the flat earth hypothesis was demolished by empirical experience as well as celestial science, the days of "race" as an scientific hypothesis are over. Now, "race" remains only as a superstitious believe propounded by those who don't understand science and those who benefit by insisting that scientific discoveries have no relevance in pseudo-scientific conversations.
"Race" surprisingly, is also defended by Blacks and other minorities who are afraid to lose their cultural identities associated with skin color. They know or seem not to realize that their sociological culture can be loosely associated with their skin colors even though "race" does not exist. We don't need the fallacy of "race" to explain to us why Americans argue so much about skin color. Americans argue so much about skin color partly because of the discredited but constantly cited fallacy of "race."
Someone recently brought to my attention her preoccupation as we see radically color-aroused white antagonists seeking to redefine the term "racism" so that only Blacks can be "racists."
The simplest way to counter these people and leave them with their jaws on the floor is to insist that "racism" does not exist because "race" does not exist. "Race" is an anachronistic disproved hypothesis about the meaning of mere skin color.
What science has discovered is that skin color means . . . skin color. So just as our status now allows us to walk of the same sidewalk with whites and not step down when they come along, so our status as members of the human species enables us to hold our heads up high and reject those who would consign us to an imutable ghetto called "the black race".
We acknowledge that our skin is brown, but we reject the notion that our brown skin makes us members of a separate sub-species of human beings. All scientific evidence now shows that there are no distinct subspecies of human beings within the human species.
It certainly is astonishing that most of the current ideas about "race" were discovered before DNA has was discovered. So, when forced to choose, will we accept the notions consistent with findings from the present DNA age, or will we steadfastly hold onto unchanged notions of "race" that were conceived over four hundred years ago, before DNA was discovered? Is it possible that new DNA human genome evidence is consistent with old beliefs that "races" that could be distinguishes from each other based on skin color? Read this and decide for yourself.
The word "race" is simply the product of a very successful historical campaign to imbue mere skin-color with all sorts of other meanings about lack of intelligence, laziness, sloth, susceptibility to violence and criminality, etc.
The next time someone tries to talk about your or their own "race," acknowledge that your skin color is different but challenge them with the new scientific evidence that "race" does not exist now and it never existed in the past. Colors DO exist in nature and in science, but "races" exist only in our own minds.
People have been discriminated against based on their skin color and cultural ethnicity. We all know that if your skin was suddenly white, then the police would be less likely to stop you and your kids, i.e. for "driving while Black." The "cue" the officer uses to stop you is not your "race" (he can't see your DNA") but rather your skin color.
Skin color antagonistic behavior has nothing whatever to do with "race", because a police officer can't see your DNA from fifty yards, except to the extent that your DNA makes your skin brown. We don't need the word "race" to describe something so simple.
When Blacks begin to insist, year after year, that "race" simply doesn't exist, then it won't matter bit when whites try to redefine "racism." The word "racism" itself will be consigned to the scrapheap of historical ignorance and irrational "flat earth" concepts, just as you no longer hear people discussing "phrenology" today, although it was very much discussed 150 years ago.
The simple fact is that we are discriminated against because our skin is brown and our votes are sought out but also feared because we are part of a "skin-color-group" that is fairly cohesive in its voting, and that group is called "Black people."
Whenever Black or white people use the word "race", we are perpetuating the scientifically disproved fallacy that there are distinct "races" among human beings. We are effectively lying to ourselves and to others because we believe that the political ends or group-cohesiveness goals justify the anti-scientific means.
The history of science shows that science-related ideas that have no basis in science will eventually be rejected and ejected from science. Can anyone remember when it was believed to be absolutely necessary to separate "Black blood" from "white blood" in blood banks? If you can't remember that, it is only because that patently false misconception was conclusively rejected and ejected from science before you were born.
Eventually Blacks and whites will agree that science has proved that "races" don't exist. I predict that THAT will be the way in which "race" is redefined over the next fifty years. We will all eventually acknowledge that skin color groups exist, but "racial groups" do not.
I’m starting to be concerned…everyone keeps telling me that people in Indiana are friendly…the hairstylist told me (and she was friendly!), the teachers tell me (oh you’ll like it here, people are so friendly), and I see other folks chatting and waving to each other from time to time…but so far, I am invisible. When I’m out walking on the neighborhood path, I receive not a word of acknowledgment. No smile. No wave. No nod. Nothing.
Y’all know being friendly requires some outward sign, right?
Or is friendly somehow different here?
Indiana is confusing.
Since I did not make an effort to determine the skin color of the blogger, I am somewhat more able to to respond in a generic fashion that includes the possibility, but does not assume the fact, of skin color-aroused ideation, emotions and behavior toward the blogger asking the question.
The blogger also posed the question, in the blogs header,
I answer these questions together, below, to the best of my indubitable ability, by posing some questions and giving some well-considered responses that I have synthesized during the last ten minutes based on a lifetime of thinking about this:
First, what is the color of your skin? The US Census Quick Facts say that Indiana is 87.8% white and 9.2% Black. If all whites treat each other with friendliness, then perhaps 87% of Indianans and the whites who visit them will report that the state is very friendly. That is a lot of friendliness, indeed. But, whites might have told each other the same thing about Mississippi during slavery. From the perspective of other whites, Mississippi was probably pretty friendly during slavery.
I suggest that you ask some Black people whether the white majority in Indiana is friendly to Black people, because that's the relevant question for anyone with brown skin.
I would also note that although there are 9.2% Blacks in Indiana, including in cities like Gary, IN, you might well travel outside a city with a large Black population and see no Blacks at all in the surrounding suburbs. You might well find that Blacks in Gary have a different opinion about the friendliness shown to Blacks, both in Gary and in the surrounding suburbs, and of other parts of the state, based on their travels and personal experiences.
In 2008, Indiana's Democratic Party Primary voters were fairly friendly to presidential primary candidate and Senator Barack Obama, even though he has brown skin and is regarded as "Black" by many people:
Although President Obama did not win the primary, he found the favor of 49% of its voters in the Democratic Party Primary. The General Election results are even more in favor of Obama, showing that Obama beat McCain 50% - 49% in the general election, which presumably would have included more whites, since Republicans, too, were participating. Judging by the 2008 presidential election results, Indiana would appear to be at least half-friendly to half-Black non-whites.
Voting to send a world-famous half-Black man to Washington as President may be a different matter from waving to and saying "hello" to an anonymous Black person on the streets of Indiana. Never having spent any time there, I cannot offer a personal opinion. That's probably just as well, because it forces me to look at more objective indicators of Indianans behavior toward Blacks.
I was just reading the US Government's definition of "disability" and one of the requirements is "being regarded as having such an impairment." Likewise, you ask above, "When is white not white?" White is not white when a person "is not regarded as having such an impairment" as the impairment in the United States associated with having skin that is not white.
If relevant professionals, friends, family and neighbors do not regard you as "blind", then you are not disabled by blindness under the US Government's definition of "disability." Likewise, you are not other than white if you are not "regarded as having such an impairment" as being other than white.
In fact, if you know or suspect that you are "one drop" Black, but no one in your community knows about it, you could still have many psychological problems associated with this dual identity. But, can you file a discrimination suit against your employer based on skin color or "race" (sic) if your employer doesn't regard you as someone having other than Black skin?
Maybe you can, because if white people around you say derogatory things about Black people in your presence and generally behave like members of the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan, you can be offended by this even though others do not know that you are a member of the group which they express a desire to completely annihilate.
If you are disabled by a physical impairment that others can perceive, then you may be disabled. Likewise, if you are sociologically, socially, economically or physically impaired among whites as a result of their perception of your skin color e.g. at work, then maybe you're not a white person. At least they don't think you are and they treated you accordingly.
If people don't "treat you accordingly", i.e. as other than white, then you are getting many of the benefits associated with white privilege. THIS DOES NOT MEAN that you are free of the psychological burdens and impairments often associated with knowing that you are "one drop" Black and knowing that some whites would hate and discriminate against you if they were aware of this fact, while Blacks resent you for the special treatment you are being accorded as a result of whites perception that you are not (or are not entirely) Black.
One of the reasons that Barack Obama is not white, is simply the practical fact and the effects of the fact that he is not regarded as being white. He does not get the privileges of being white that come with "generally being regarded as" being white.
You're mother might be black is coal, but you are not entirely other than white until and unless others "regard you as having such" a condition of being other than white. That's just ONE of MANY criteria, but it's a pretty important one. If no one in your neighborhood and none of the doctors you see regards you as "blind" or "vision impaired", how have you managed to keep it a secret?
The disability statute supposes that it is impossible to keep disability a secret from everyone you know; if, you have an impairment serious enough to be eligible for disability benefits, then relevant people will know about it. If they don't know, it's because your impairment, if you have one at all, does not rise to the level required for a finding of disability.
Maybe another useful question is, "When are you impaired by not being white?" Obviously there is no one answer to this question because there are many possible criteria, but there are some obvious answers, such as, "You are impaired by not being white when others perceive you as not being white."
You discover that the house you own was built before the Civil War, by slaves who received no pay for their labor. How should/would you respond, if at all?
"DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity. People who have lived in the same geographic region for many generations may have some alleles in common, but no allele will be found in all members of one population and in no members of any other."
In other words, the Human Genome Project has proven that, as a matter of scientific fact, that which we call "race" does not exist as a matter of biology, and so all references to "race" are references to a fallacy.
"Francis L. Holland, one of the vocal black bloggers, sent e-mails to DNC officials asking that 15 black-operated blogs be added to the State Corps. "There is nothing 'Democratic' about an all-white Democratic National Convention floor blogging corps," he wrote in an e-mail. Holland is also asking for the inclusion of 15 Latino-operated blogs."
"Or, as Obama supporter Francis L. Holland puts it: "So, it shows tremendous courage, foresight and solidarity that Edwards has endorsed Obama after the media declared Hillary's campaign to be as good as dead, right? Oh, well! Better late than never!"
"Of the blogs covering the convention, black blogs will be 7.2% of the blogs present,” says Francis L. Holland of the Afrosphere Action Coalition. According to Holland, many states with a strong black Democratic presence and population are either underrepresented or not represented at all, even though black bloggers from these states did apply. “The state of Tennessee, which often has over 25% blacks among its Democratic primary voters, will not have a single black blogger at the Democratic National Convention, for example. The District of Columbia, which is 60% black, will be left out. Louisiana, which is 32.4% black, will be left out. Illinois, the presidential nominee’s home state, which is 15% black, will be left out.”
"We are tired of Hillary Clinton telling America that we are less than American simply because we refuse to vote for her," said Francis L. Holland, an African American blogger." Ironically, the Clintons embraced us, and even embraced Pastor Jeremiah Wright for support during their impeachment scandal." Holland was speaking of the congressional trial that followed former president Bill Clinton's liaison with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. "She has forfeited the black vote for the foreseeable future with her color aroused appeals."
“November’s voter turnout depends on August’s blogger outreach,” said Mr. Holland of the Afrosphere Action Coalition., a member of a national and international black bloggers’ coalition called “The AfroSpear.” “Blogs address constituencies, and it simply is not possible for blogs that are all-white to effectively reach diverse Democratic constituencies.”
"Of the blogs covering the convention, black blogs will be 7.2% of the blogs present," says Francis L. Holland of the Afrosphere Action Coalition. According to Holland, many states with a strong black Democratic presence and population are either underrepresented or not represented at all, even though black bloggers from these states did apply. “The state of Tennessee, which often has over 25% blacks among its Democratic primary voters, will not have a single black blogger at the Democratic National Convention, for example. The District of Columbia, which is 60% black, will be left out. Louisiana, which is 32.4% black, will be left out. Illinois, the presidential nominee's home state, which is 15% black, will be left out."
"Francis Holland is a blogger from Afrospear, a national group of bloggers that advocates for African-Americans. When he looked at the list of State Bloggers, he saw no black blogs among them. Holland explains that the process the Democratic Convention planners used to choose the State Blogger Corps was bound to lead to this result. And he argues that the Democratic Party can scarcely afford to alienate black voters in this election year." (The original link no longer works, which is becoming a growing documentation problem on the Internet.)
"Electing Edwards to challenge the status quo is like supporting a queen to challenge the monarchy or integrating an all-white club by adding more all-white club members. It is possible that electing yet another white man to the Presidency will end the poverty of the historically disenfranchised, with John Edwards serving as a "pass through" for those who have historically been disincluded legally and by custom. But this is a very convoluted way of achieving what could be achieved much more directly by electing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. ..."
Disclaimer:
Although I am a trained attorney, I am retired and am not an active member of any state Bar. Therefore, I advocate in all matters on my own behalf and not as the legal representative of any person, group or organization.
I find it most interesting that the writer describes this woman as "racially ambiguous". "Race", as a matter of science, does NOT exist and it never did. The reason that her "race" is so hard to determine is that "race' was never a scientific reality. It's like saying the height and weight of the Easter Bunny and Santa's reindeer are "ambiguous." They are ambiguous because they don't exist.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Human Genome Program,
"DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity. People who have lived in the same geographic region for many generations may have some alleles in common, but no allele will be found in all members of one population and in no members of any other."
In other words, the Human Genome Project has proven that, as a matter of scientific fact, that which we call "race" does not exist as a matter of biology, and so all references to "race" are references to a fallacy.
An article called 'Race' and the Human Genome", published at Nature.Com in the "Nature Genetics," acknowledges that:
"With very rare exceptions, all of us in the US are immigrants. We bring with us a subset of genes from our homelands, and for many Americans, often first-generation but more commonly second-generation, the plural noun 'homelands' is appropriate. From this perspective, the most immediately obvious characteristic of 'race' is that describing most of us as Caucasian, Asian or African is far too simple. Despite attempts by the US Census Bureau to expand its definitions, the term 'race' does not describe most of us with the subtlety and complexity required to capture and appreciate our genetic diversity. Unfortunately, this oversimplification has had many tragic effects. Therefore, we need to start with the science . . . "