This story made me wonder if some courageous Asian-Americans couldn’t kill the Asian American quota system within the University of California system. Since the university system is discriminating against Asian-Americans on the basis of their race, which requires self-identification, I suggest everyone start self-identifying as African-American. You might say, no, that’s cheating. I say it is not – is there a statuatory definition of race? Is there some blood test you have to take? Is there an approved ancestral technique for calculating what race you are? No. By their rules, you are what you say you are. Fantastic. Say you are African-American. Guess what? You’re chances of getting admitted to the UC school of your choice just sky-rocketed. You just have given yourself 300-400 SAT points at the tick of one little box. But, you say, what happens when I get to campus, and they see that I do not fit their stereotype of African-American appearance? Then what? Well, here’s where the courageous part comes in. You have to say: I am African American; prove I’m not. And let the state of California start pulling out their old race-by-blood arguments. Can you imagine the hyper-progressive Attorney General Kamala Harris arguing about mulattos and one drop of black blood, can you prove that your ancestors came from Africa? etc. And even if you don’t win in court, you will rally the people in this country who want to judge other people by their actions, by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin. If everyone starts to tick that box, the racers in academia can no longer discriminate on the basis of race.
And wasn’t that the point?
I have a white friend from Namibia who checked the African-American box and was sent to an all-black dorm from which he was summarily dismissed. He almost lost his scholarship for “lying” on his application. When he pointed out that he was actually born in Windhoek (you know, actual AFRICA), he got to keep his scholarshhip.
You’re chances => Your chances
Plus, you get to fire off classic lines like
“I’m not a mulatto, I’m an octaroon!”
I’d rather self-identify as Native American because:
1. Because it’s true.
2. Because I’ve got blue eyes and fair skin.
3. I can go on and on about how the white man stole our land.
From there, I’ll talk about grandmother being left in a Texas orphanage by her Cherokee parents when the white man made the Cherokee tribe walk the Trail of Tears.
My history isn’t nearly as cool as grandmother’s. Which I’m okay with. Hardship and privation isn’t really something I care to experience.
WE ARE ALL AFRICAN-AMERICAN!
FREE MUMIA!I’ve always delighted in pointing out that Charlize Theron is more African-American than is Caryn “Whoopi Goldberg” Johnson, and usually get an odd look. I’ve laughed aloud at BBC talking heads using the term “African American” to refer to British citizens with higher than average melanin counts.
This sounds like exactly the tactic to use to “disrupt the comfortable”…
Can I be Spartacus?
I never get to be Spartacus.
This sounds like exactly the tactic to use to “disrupt the comfortable”…
Yes drumwaster, this is rule 4 and rule 5.
I thought mankind originated in the Tigris-Euphrates river basin. We’re all from Africa.
If that doesn’t fly, perhaps someone needs to make a set of rules about how long ago we can claim various ancestry before the statute of limitations dries up. If I’m a victim, I need to know which grievance group to join.
Or, we could just go back to using merit to evaluate people. What a concept.
“Actually, I’m a black sino-european lesbian trapped in the body of a white-bread teenager from Sandusky, Ohio. Also, I’m a bleeder – so don’t hit me.”
I thought mankind originated in the Tigris-Euphrates river basin. We’re all from Africa.
Iraq, actually. Babylon if you want to get technical.
Cranky, I think you might mean the Rift Valley. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers are in Asia, where people think civilization originated.
I’m apparently mixing up my seventh grade social studies learnin’. I don’t think I heard anything about it after that.
I remember Dr. Leakey, and I guess he had a daughter, and grainy color shorts about his discoveries. And I remember the Tigris-Euphrates river basin, and bones and stuff from there.
That exhausts my knowledge on the subject.
South Africa (or “Efrica”, depending) is where Genus Homo evolved. He moved north much later.
In all seriousness: when did we ever do that? There was a while there when I thought we were getting there, but lately it seems like we’ve been backsliding.
I’ve laughed aloud at BBC talking heads using the term “African American” to refer to British citizens with higher than average melanin counts.
I do not know what my legal defense would be, but if I were to witness such a thing in person, I would surely smack the shit out of them, and not cease smacking them until they began functioning properly.
As for “out of Africa”, it’s a theory. Other say other places. Mid-east is a hot contender. If you’re in India, the out-of-India theory is very popular.
What I find when looking at pre-history is a couple of things.
First of all, everything everyone claims to know is based on a couple shards of broken pottery.
Second of all, for as long as we have existed near as I can tell, peoples moved all over the place constantly, splintered and merged with wreckless abandon, and fucked everything in sight.
And throughout it all, ethnic/racial/tribal designations were relative to one’s point of view, an ever-present source of dispute, and fluid and constantly changing.
That’s (one of the places anyway) where agriculture originated. The Out-of-Africa theory says that all humans can trace their ancestry back to Africa if you go far enough. After our species became distinct from other hominids, we started wandering around. We seem to do a lot of that, actually. Even the Native Americans either came over via the Bering land bridge during an ice age or via boat during interglacials.
So I say we’re all African-Americans; some of our ancestors just left the Motherland a bit earlier.
To use the progressive terms, some of us have endured a longer african diaspora…which, doesn’t that make our grieveance all the more pressing?
I can imagine that quite easily. It’s a short walk back from “progressive” to “eugenicist”, after all.
Fuck yeah. My favorite example of “well, isn’t that uncomfortable for you” is the Chinese Communist/Han supremacist government attempting to square their “our people have always controlled these parts of Asia” rhetoric with the discovery of white-skinned, red-haired, plaid-wearing mummies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srLXMqNoQh4
I’m from Espain….