Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Only white people have the luxury of saying race is "fluid". Clueless dolts.
I'm not white, but yes, race is fluid. Different communities will classify you differently, depending on where they perceive you to fit, compared to them - lighter, darker, more similar, more different, etc. Only bigots think "race" has any kind of natural root, rather than social flux.
Complexion is fluid, race is not. What is your race? Fluidly speaking of course.
My parents came from different continents, so I'm pretty mixed - but with an ethnic name, ambiguous looks, people classify me differently depending on context. "Race" is irrelevant, except in a strictly social context. There's no biological basis, but as we move in different social circles, the labels can switch in an instant - because "race" means nothing, unless you find a away to compare it to something else.
If Hispanic is not a race, why do they constantly ask us to mark it on the race boxes? I anticipate that my children will have very different experiences because they look completely different. This will affect their entire lives and may lead them in different directions. My oldest is in a predominantly AA school and has friends only in the AA and Spanish and mixed communities. She has not experienced any rejection from those communities. I don't think my other girl has a chance of doing that because she has blond hair and blue eyes and looks white.
People can "pass" in all different sorts of communities. My two cousins (sibs) are half Chinese. Went to the same boarding school but years apart. Girl looks Italian, exotic, boy looks Chinese. Boy ended up learning Chinese and works in China. Never occurred to girl, because she was never treated that way.
She has now married a Jewish man and converted. Is that a race or a culture? Depends on who you talk to. Kids go to Chinese and Hebrew school. When the sibs were in China for a year they were called round eyes and treated horribly, and there are many who will not accept my cousin's kids as Jewish because it has to pass through the mother.
Black Puerto Ricans and Cubans and Costa Ricans go under some kinds of radar all the time. After 9/11 the security folks constantly thought my husband was Arab. When he was in Israel an 18 year old army kid handed him the M-16 he was using to protect girls on a school trip while he went to take a leak.
My youngest child will never be thought of as anything but white, even though she is half Puerto Rican and 1/8 African. She better stay fluent in Spanish.
My race is the only one that is crystal clear historically and phenotypically - I am Caucasian all the way, here before the Mayflower. I am Dutch. I speak Mexican Spanish, and can pass for a light Chilango.
My parents raised me to be an intellectual snob, my husband is brilliant, and my children are far smarter than I am. But I do realize that because they look very different they will not be treated the same way, and the only advice you can give them is about the way they react.
I do believe race is a cultural construct, and that it is fluid. I am a particular race. My husband is at least two. My children? That is for them to decide given the situation, but I do feel that my child who looks like me is going to have less flexibility.
And no one is Mestizo because the Tainos were wiped out.