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Actually, the Irish were terribly discriminated against by other whites. Of course nowhere near the extent as blacks or American Indians, but, it was pretty bad.
Sound familiar?
"The Chicago Post wrote, "The Irish fill our prisons, our poor houses...Scratch a convict or a pauper, and the chances are that you tickle the skin of an Irish Catholic. Putting them on a boat and sending them home would end crime in this country."
...
Early Americans disdained this type of work, fit only for servants, the common sentiment being, "Let Negroes be servants, and if not Negroes, let Irishmen fill their place...""
He can call himself Swedish for all I care. All I am saying is that I don't think someone with a distant ancestor of a certain group should say they are mixed. Black with some European? Okay. But not the same as Slash from Guns and Roses:
At the same time I would never claim to be Native American, even though I had a Native Ancestor I never met.
But ultimately, we have the right to define ourselves as we choose. I choose to not be black or white...why do so many black people have a problem with that? If Obama was to come out and say "look, I am just as white as I am black and I had a different experience than most black Americans" do you really think majority of black America would be okay with that?
If I must categorize myself, I prefer the term multiracial, end of subject. I don't have a direct ancestor of any race, but rather a family with a history of racial mixing. My father is a mixed race Brazilian. My mom has ancestry from Jamaica, Scotland, Mohawk, Arawak and African. I am proud of carrying traits from all of the races.
My daughters are also half Mexican-American. Their pics are in my profile -- one is lighter than the other, but they are both sisters.
As kumbayah as it sounds, I wish we could just move on past race and looks.
You probably mean your kids are half "Indian"? Mexicans; like us Americans, can be of any race. I've known several "anglo" looking people I'd NEVER peg as "Mexican" tho they were born there. OTOH: I know a dude who's of Irish family, thought he was a light skin Chicano looking at his face, hair and eyes.
Why do YOU care if a person who has 1% non-subSaharan African ancestry labels themselves as "biracial"? What does it matter to you?
You can't have it both ways. You have a problem with people labeling Black/White "biracials" as "black" and assert the right of each individual to self define.....YET you take issue with a person who self defines as "biracial" if they happen to be too DARK for your particular taste.
So just as no one has the right to tell YOU what you are...YOU do not have the right to tell someone else that they are too "BLACK" to be biracial.
Quote:
Originally Posted by victorianpunk
There is such a thing as "second and third generation mixed people." Most brown Brazilians are mixed going far back in their family tree, same with mixed people all over the world.
If you 1) are pretty evenly split genetically, like say 40/60 or 50/50 2) look mixed and most importantly 3) identify as mixed, you are mixed.
And spare me, SPARE ME the whole "well, plenty of dark skinned black people have .5% European DNA) line. If you went to a hardware store and bought green paint, opened it up and it was blue, would you settle for "no, can't give you your money back, that is green. There was a one cup out of 16 yellow in that blue paint and hence it is mixed, or green"?
Oh, and I have to say, as politically incorrect as it is to say, school aged black girls HATE mixed girls even more than white ones. I've seen it myself. They have this resentment because they are closer to the Europeancentric notion of beauty than black girls are and take it out on them. My own niece is picked on by black girls all the time and most of her friends are white or Asian as a result.
You know what, if you (in the general sense) are constantly being portrayed as being inferior/ugly/stupid, etc. merely because of the amount of melanin you have, you'd be pissy too. I'm not condoning it, and I've experienced some unsavory remarks and situations in my lifetime, but I can tell you that I can understand it.
Just think really hard about it -- in this topic alone, being Black and Black culture is associated with gangsta rap, poverty, you name it. There are many Black people who like blink 182 and many White people like N.W.A. I personally like Carmina Burana and a good shot of Ice Cube too. People of all races love a good bucket of fried chicken.
Victorian, you admit that being a mixed person confers certain privileges. My mother, when she visited Jamaica, was fawned over because of her light skin and hair type. You can probably easily hail a cab, whereas if you were darker, you'd feel that unforgettable sting of racism. Just like people don't know what you're going through, you haven't walked in their shoes either.
Also, colorism is alive and well in Brazil. Why do you think all of those terms exist? Pardo, indio, negro...why not drop all of that altogether? My father is Brasilian and he knows this first hand. Most of the Black people live in favelas and even though the country's portrayed as this mixed-race melting pot, where are the true colored politicians in the past twenty years?
Why do YOU care if a person who has 1% non-subSaharan African ancestry labels themselves as "biracial"? What does it matter to you?
You can't have it both ways. You have a problem with people labeling Black/White "biracials" as "black" and assert the right of each individual to self define.....YET you take issue with a person who self defines as "biracial" if they happen to be too DARK for your particular taste.
So just as no one has the right to tell YOU what you are...YOU do not have the right to tell someone else that they are too "BLACK" to be biracial.
And you do not have the right to one drop us into being black. They can call themselves anything they want, but I think it is rather silly for someone with blonde hair, blue eyes and rosy cheeks to insist they are "mulatto" as I also think it is rather silly for someone blueblack skin to insist they are "mulatto."
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