Not just another race story, but one about the fact that for the first time, Whites in the United States accounted for less than half of all live births last year.
Of the 4,080,000 births in the United States last year, 1,988,824 were to Whites. The rest, 2,019,176 and that number includes mixed-race births.
What I find obnoxious about such stories is the seemingly negative tone about this trend.
But what I want to talk about is the mixed-race births and that is a positive trend in the United States.
The article did not discuss how many births were of mixed or multiple race children.
So I will from a personal perspective of family and friends.
My good friend, Mr. An Unmarried Man is a Mexican-American. He married a Korean-American woman and they had a son, a Korean-Mexican American.
Another good friend's sister, also a Mexican-American, married an Armenian. They also had a son. An Armenian-Mexican American.
In my own family, the numbers are very high in mixed-race marriage and children.
One of my brothers had a son with a Mexican-American woman.
My sister's oldest son is White and Mexican-American. And he is with a Mexican-American woman and has three children.
One of my nieces married a Black man and they have a son.
Two of my nephews and brothers married Asians. One married a Korean-American and they have two children. The other, married a Philippina-American and have two children.
So, what is the point of this?
That the whole paradigm of race in the United States is changing.
And for the better.
People are no longer feeling a false "race loyalty" and are getting together, well because. Religion may have a role. Trying to be different. I do not really know.
But what this does is make the dream of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King come true. That people will be judged, yes judged, not on the color of their skin but the content of their character.
How can you not define the dilution of the races as nothing more than the Americanization of our nation, once and for all?
Of course, the Race-Huckster Industrial Complex can not stand this.
If Americans on their own begin the process of deemphasizing race, then what will the fill-in-the-blank race-centered group to do?
Well, they take take off their veils and admit that the race mixing is not a good thing for their own race. They can just go about the negativity many Americans, especially us eeeeevvvvviiiiilllll White Americans, The irony. That these RHIC people will blame Whites while castigating their own for not caring about race when the meet that special someone and marry. And have children.
The more that we see of mixed-race births the less it becomes relevant the whole attitude of race relations.
Oh, I want to note that there are a fair share of White Americans do have negative views on mixed-race relationships. But I find that is less and less of that is important as more and more, particularly young Whites, just say no to all this pointless race stuff.
You know, is not good to just know people and like them, or not, for who they are as a person and nothing more?
I believe that.
And so do many Americans.
I do not know if it will happen in my lifetime, but I do know that it will in our grand children's lifetime.
What will happen?
That we will not have to check off a race box for anything. We will simply be Americans. We will have multiple heritages and a lot to look back at in genealogy.
Too bad The New York Times did not look at that and find something positive about that trend.
6 comments:
They have applied the "one-drop rule." How long until we get rid of that? According to that rule I'm not white either, though I didn't know this until I did some research and discovered American Indian and Black ancestry. Doesn't change who I am, but perhaps it makes the family story a bit more interesting. I'm more or less 90% white, so I only checked the one box on the census form. I have no idea what percentage of another race "counts" to the census people. I suspect that many of the non-white folks in this last census are 1/32 Cherokee or something and checked two boxes! My ancestors apparently decided to keep this a secret. For good reason. But people nowadays tend to be proud of their mixed ancestry, and this is encouraging. After the kiddo was born I asked myself if I would be disappointed if one day he brought home a girl of a different race, and truly I wouldn't. (I admit to a small frisson of anxiety at the thought of becoming a minority.) What will matter is her character, faith, values, goals. I'd have a problem with his bringing home a Muslima, a Wiccan, or a Hindu. Though an ex-Muslima, etc. would be OK! As far as immigration goes I'm not worried about non-whites. I'm worried about people who hate our values. Though ai-ya, the thought of applying litmus tests to the immigration process makes my head spin.
I'll never forget in a high school social studies class our teacher (Mexican-American) said that Mexicans were a bastard race. In this global era, race is giving way to blends.
What a rotten thing to say! Anyway, if a bastard race is created by invading armies fathering illegitimate children, all of Europe and almost everyone else is a bastard race. Europeans aren't 100% Caucasian, either--Scandinavians have Asian genes from the Saami, Mediterranean peoples have mixed with people from the south, etc.--people have always mixed, given the opportunity. But I wonder how the human drive to form "tribes" will express itself in the future. Nationalism, political factions, religious groups, class divisions, etc.?
(hey, there's my icon!)
@Unmarried Man, I think I remember who you are talking about. The only cool thing was he let me report on President Reagan's press conferences and or speeches. And if it is the same one, he was a Dem (super, super surprise!) and served on the West Covina school board.
@Amy, nah it was not all that bad. Had to know the teacher. If it is who I am thinking of. But you are right about most races not being pure. As if that is a big deal. But, what is happening now in the United States, I believe, can only happen here because we are the ulitmate nation of immigrants. I just yearn for the day NOT having to answer the race question on any forms. I mean, I love my Scots heritage and my Jewish identity (racially not religion), but what defines me is being an American.
I'm a big genealogy nerd, but I don't identify as any nationality except American. My ancestors came from at least 15 different nations--which would I choose? Other than American, I feel like a Southern/Bostonian hybrid. Mom's folks have been in the South since the 1600s (longer for the natives), so I identify more with "Southern" than e.g. English or Scottish. But I'm a native Bostonian too. The spouse is an enthusiastic Irish-American--when I was pregnant he joked that his Irish corpuscles would beat up my English corpuscles so the kiddo wouldn't have any Englishness left in him. Surprisingly, my mother was disappointed that I married an Irish-American. Some of those old feuds die hard!!
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