Tag: ethnicity

When the wannabe cop, George Zimmerman, shot an unarmed teenager through the heart for having too much skin pigmentation, a racist jury of skin pigment-challenged women decided it was a good and just thing to do because they heard the large man with the gun screaming for help.

Betcha a jury of non-skin-pigment-challenged men would have heard the unarmed teenager as the one screaming for help from the heavier stalker with the gun.

There was, as usual, lots of ignorant, untruthful testimony in the trial but how could anyone top the imaginary African-American DNA the pathologist claimed was found?

It is not hard to differentiate biology from culture though both contribute to the individual. A racist cannot do so because he or she is blinded by color they claim, like sociologists, to be unable to see.

When Jesse Owens caused a stir in the 1936 Olympics by outrunning Der Fuehrer’s Supermen, learned scholars wrote in scientific journals that Jesse had the advantage of the negroid foot.

But Jesse had a caucasoid foot when someone bothered looking at Jesse’s foot rather than his face.

So then wasn’t Jesse a caucasian with the same disadvantage, if such it be, as the German supermen?

If there were a God, would He not save us from this hateful color bigotry?

The pathologist was undoubtedly relying on continental ancestry but that does not exactly fit continents nor does it comport with skin pigmentation.

Caucasian and Negroid arose from physical anthropologist’s attempt to differentiate sub-species of Homo sapiens before DNA.

Continental ancestry based on DNA groupings includes the South Asian sub-continent for “European” ancestry while the “African” ancestry in popular and also misleading popular misconception includes only sub-Saharan Africa in broad categorization.

There is no DNA for culture and bigotry that twists both to accommodate popular prejudices.  

Best,  Terry  

Was not Michelle Obama her great-great-great-grandfather’s granddaughter?

The First Family: A New Glimpse of Michelle Obama’s White Ancestors

We knew that the Sunday article about Mrs. Obama’s white ancestors would stir considerable interest so we decided to invite readers to pose questions and make comments. We never imagined that one of those readers would provide us with the first glimpse of two key figures in the first lady’s family tree: The white man who owned Mrs. Obama’s great-great-great grandmother, Melvinia Shields, and his son, who most likely fathered Melvinia’s child.

–

The photo came from Jarrod Shields, a science teacher at a community college in Alabama who also happens to be the great-great-great grandson of Henry Wells Shields. He was getting ready to mow the lawn when his wife, Tonya, got a call about the article and called him to come inside. Jarrod had grown up knowing that his family had once owned slaves and always wondered what happened to their descendants. His wife sent me an e-mail this week, outlining her husband’s connection to the Shields family, along with the photograph.

When I spoke to Jarrod by phone, he told me that he hoped that he might be able to meet his extended black family, he said of the descendants of the slaves his ancestors had owned. “I always really wanted to say I was sorry.

Why is Jarrod sorry?  

“I always really wanted to say I was sorry. I also wanted to let them know that we’re glad that you’re part of our family, however it came about.”

http://www.nytimes.com/interac…

The sentiment is appreciated but why should Jarrod be sorry and Michelle not sorry?  Didn’t they both have the same ancestry?

The obvious goodwill and good intentions of Jarrod Shields leave a bitter aftertaste to those who will see instead of only feel.

As long as there is “them” and “us” based only on an insane and uncertain color line, there will continue to be armies of victims like Trayvon Martin on both sides of the line.

The lines extend far beyond the separate and unequal societies to a very lethal effect on scientific medical research as one example.

Best,  Terry

If you intend to be offended by the title, then you will be and maybe we can discuss the weather or something.

I am in absolute awe of Chris Hayes but his use of the soft racism equating ethnicity to race to attack the hard racism of John Roberts is like fingernails on a blackboard to me.  It is akin to the Southern ladies using “nigra” in place of the awful word that showed they were more cultured than their menfolk.

Ethnicity is about culture.

Race has always been about biology, no matter how perverted it might have become.

So what is a reporter to do to make himself understood?

How about not mixing the two?

When Elizabeth Warren claimed American Indian ancestry, there was no reason to doubt her beyond her sketchy knowledge.  Hard racist Scott Brown declared Warren was no American Indian because anyone could tell by just looking.  In a pig’s eye.

But Elizabeth was not remotely an ethnic American Indian, whatever her ancestry. She seemed surprisingly ignorant of what that would mean – without intending any insult.

We will never sideline the ubiquitous racism in American society until we know the difference between biology and culture.

I bet, dear reader, I could explain it quite easily to Chris Hayes talking face to face but I may not be able to explain it to you.

Best,  Terry