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Well, I'm an European mixture but have always been dark and as a result since I was little, there have been continual though not constant instances of my being taken (in ranking order of frequency) for Native American, Mexican, Roma (in European countries). Some of the instances have been harmless, some haven’t. Some have been positive, for instance, the warmth extended to me from waiters, waitresses, janitors, gardeners, maids, etc, who have been in part glad to see 'one of their own' on the other side of the table, etc. But these various experiences have always been difficult to express, in part because I don’t have a familial or community experience with which to connect them. But it has given me more than a glimpse of the pained experience of being a minority, being treated accordingly, the resultant hesitation in certain places and social situations and neighborhoods where the instances were not harmless. It’s one thing to be asked what one’s ethnic background is, and another to be taken for a minority, and racism seems to depend upon appearance, in which any face 'other' is taken for the Other, with resulting variants, depending on what the 'other' is in one's own experience, for even the imagination is limited by the assumptions, prejudices and histories of the imaginer. However, I can't really 'take on' any of these that 'I am' in the same way a person who had the familial or community experience with which to connect them, since the fluidity itself is something of a privilege. Perhaps a weird one, for there is nothing really that I like knowing from these various experiences, even the harmless, or more positive ones. My children are half-Mexican, and the instances are more frequent and more definitive. It’s much easier to be in diverse neighborhoods, when in one's class all but three of the kids were one generation from somewhere else, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Haiti, Jamaica, etc. The result is none of them even ask and there doesn’t seem to be much notice of the identity of anyone. When there is no more, which is to say, when everyone’s different, no one makes a point that we are. On the other hand, none of my children would be happy being called a blend or contaminated, in part because they have had too much real experience with those terms used in lethal seriousness, with the resulting uncertainties of response and behavior. Best, Rebecca ---- Original message ---- >Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 22:30:27 -0500 >From: George Hunka <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Re: Colonisation >To: [log in to unmask] > >Of central European extraction myself (moody, solitary, internalized >melancholics--see Raskolnikov and the Karamazovs), I married into a >Greek family (boisterous, communal extroverts--see Zorba and Melina >Mercouri). Talk about your bizarre phenomena ... > >But yes, the same cultural assumptions apply here, especially in regard >to Asian women. And as you say, in this white men are often quite >mistaken. But there's such a strong Asian-American traditionalist >subculture here that many young Asian women find themselves in very >difficult conflict; the images of Asian-American women in the media here >don't much help. I can't even begin to speak for the conflicts black >American women face. > >I don't know how much the concept of the Lacanian "Other" applies here, >as Stephen V suggested. There is the personal, individual Other, in >which one sees fragments of oneself in another's individual's language >or body or presence (and the ability, too, to see that Other reflected >in the self), and this clearly has wider cultural ramifications as well. >But the first, I think, provides more freedom for personal experience, >since there are far more individuals than there are cultural groups. But >maybe I'm just being cranky. > >Alison Croggon wrote: >> On 4/1/06 12:37 PM, "George Hunka" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >> >>> Somewhat more worrisome because more ambivalent is the way I've seen >>> some people partner exclusively with members of another race. I'm not >>> saying this is true in more than a few cases, but I do know some white >>> men who, through their adult lives, have dated and married women of >>> color exclusively; in casual conversation, they've admitted that they >>> find, say, Asian women far more attractive than white women. This makes >>> me wonder if race hasn't become to these few people (and not, I must >>> emphasize, in the majority of cases) a sexual fetish which dehumanises >>> their partners, denies them individuality, every bit as much as racism >>> does. And then there are religions like the Ba'hai faith, which urges >>> the sexual mixing of the races and, in an odd sort of >>> wishful-eugenic-thinking, believes that in so doing the so-called "best" >>> aspects of the races will somehow inhere in their children. >>> >> >> Hi George - that's a bizarre phenomenon, and I see your reservations - it's >> uncomfortably close to the massage parlours here which advertise "Asian >> Ladies" or the mail-order bride syndrome... the stated attraction of that >> is that Asian women are much more submissive than their Western sisters. >> (Not true, I must say, of the Asian women I know personally...) I wonder how >> much that factor enters unspoken into these liberal paradigms? And of course >> racism runs all ways; my oldest friend here married into a wealthy Chinese >> Malaysian family, and they were scandalised that their son should marry a >> white woman. Although two children and many years later, that's all old hat. >> >> But I must stop chatting, and get back to work... >> >> Best >> >> A >> >> Alison Croggon >> >> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com >> Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au >> Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com >> >> >> > >-- > >George Hunka >[log in to unmask] >http://www.ghunka.com