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Peaceful Dave's avatar

"Race" or whatever people wish to call it is a collection of characteristics associated with race. It is certainly not restricted to melanin. With respect to a condition my wife has, a surgeon referred to her as "highly melanated." She is darker than some people who are classified as black which can be quite white. But a person who would not call her Asian based upon her appearance would be rare since her DNA ancestry is a collection of Southeast Asian subgroups. She has been mistaken for a Navaho, possibly because we live in Arizona.

All of that quickly dilutes. When we lived in Saudi Arabia several people assumed our daughters were Arabs. A mixture of European and Asian ancestry makes them technically Eurasian. They heard plenty of "Where are you from?" growing up and when we lived in Georgia many black people referred to them as "half white."

All that to say race can be unambiguously observable, or diluted to the point that people can pass for a race that comes with less baggage. It tells you nothing of their character, intelligence or world view. Does some of my wife's behavior fit the Asian stereotype? Sure, but with 50+ years of marriage to her, so is some of mine.

I'm not transracial ;0), just because of my comfort with some of that. That's where people go off the rails. TV over the internet from Thailand is streaming as I write this. There are Thai speaking actors/actresses in her shows who look white and who look black. Are they a mix or immigrants who speak Thai like a native? Who knows? Who cares? Nobody is calling them farang or farang dam. They are just people who are a part of the landscape, which is the way things should be. We are a collection of ancestry and personal experiences. I suspect that my life experience shaped me more than my genes.

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Chris Fox's avatar

ASIDE: HNY to all. I just canceled all my subscriptions; Substack, music, donations.

Except this one.

Time to grow up.

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