Photo Credit: Quest101
One thing I love about living in California is that the area is not just diverse – many parts of the US have racial and cultural diversity – but that the area has been diverse for such a long time. From the Punjabi-Mexicans of Yuba City to the Gosei generation of the Japanese-Americans, this area has had, and continues to have both a striking ability to maintain important pieces of cultural continuity of immigrant groups and a high degree of intermarriage and mixed-race kids. As I walk down the streets of San Francisco everyday, I’m struck by the number of people who look like they could have very diverse backgrounds.
Which brings me to the main topic of the day – the future of mixed-race-ness. You may have run across this idea before – that, in the future, we’re all going to be some beige color. Heck, Russell Peters even has a few words on the topic:
Of course, it’s not so simple as all that. Yes, it’s true that interracial marriages – and presumably mixed-race children- are on the rise world-wide. But it seems unlikely, at least to me, that interracial marriage will suddenly skyrocket in the places it needs to – like India and China – in order to have a “homogeneous” world population in two hundred or three hundred years. And then there’s the complications of slower intermarriage and changing birth rates. As one of the commenters on Razib of Gene Expression’s blog posts on this topic points out, attempts to “average out” the current world population into an average man don’t work very well, since they don’t take into account current and future birth rates:
Even ignoring the laws of hereditary when it comes to appearance and assuming there is no selection effect on different features one still needs to look at the time scales on which a blending of races would take place and take note of the differential birth rates.
We can’t project indefinitely but lets say three decade predictions are not completely useless and lets assume there is no quick rebound in fertility after the demographic transition in the works. If one takes there to be a hundred million or so more Ameridian, a billion more African, and say 500 million more Indian, and a hundred million less European faces in a composite of a “future human” one would get a much better if still deeply flawed picture.
Still as a member of a mixed-race family, with an eventual expectation of mixed-race kidlets, I find these sorts of “averagings” interesting, even if they aren’t particularly accurate. The face at the top of this post is one population-weighed average created using measurements from different racial groups. The one to the left is created by using four composite of Northwest European, South & West Asian, East Asian and African faces. I still haven’t decided whether I think the first or the second is a more accurate representation of the current population, averaged out.
In the end, though, I think the most interesting piece of this “mixed-race” future is how it will affect society and social interactions. First there’s the claims that mixed race people increased genetic diverseness makes them more attractive and/or healthier. Then there are the claims that an increased percentage of mixed-race people will decrease racial tensions and general prejudices.
For the first claim regarding genetic fitness, well, I’m rather skeptical of most social science claims of this type – they tend to be a bit shoddy on the science side of things. If it turns out to be true, cool, but I don’t think it’s worth losing any sleep over it. The second claim I see as pretty naïve, although stemming from understandable premises. As Ta-Nehisi Coate, one of my favorite bloggers on race (and a host of other topics), writes:
There is some truth to that–people tend to discriminate against people who are different from them, and the most obvious marker of difference is phenotype. From this perspective, a black/white marriage is a blow against racism, and our history of white supremacy, because it produces kids who presumably don’t represent the phenotypical extreme of blackness or whiteness. The hope is that one day, we’ll all be beige hence rendering racism inoperative, hence the “Beige Theory” of fighting racism.
….
It may seem, at first glance like the ancient marital beef between blacks and whites extends from how different we look. But it’s so much more complicated. And humans being humans, even if we were all beige, we’d find some way to discriminate. Assuming that we can destroy whiteness or blackness, assumes that these are actual, tangible things which can’t be redefined, refitted and reformed. But history says otherwise, and I’d argue that should we ever become one race, we’d basically create new ones.
Circling back, it’s true that the interracial couple is striking a blow against white racism–but not because they’re creating a beige kid. They’re striking a blow because they’re thinking more about their own individuality, their own humanity, than about convention. We can all applaud that–and while applauding it, understand that the notion of fucking our way out of racism, presumes too much of our good will, and too little of our imagination.
In other words, racism is not the ultimate fight – it’s all based on prejudices and stereotypes, which are used to discriminate against groups. Race is just been the most convenient marker for separating out and grouping people – and has been since the Age of Discovery, when global trade and interaction really took off. Instead of imagining a future where we all look the same, where racism dies and another prejudicial -ism begins, we should focus on people’s individuality and unique humanity.
2. November 2010 at 2:56 pm
that, in the future, we’re all going to be some beige color
for traits controlled by only about 6 genes, like skin color, the expectation/meadian will be beige, but there’s going to be natural variance around that. he’s a semi-technical explanation:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2009/01/brown-brown-black-white/
but you know this empirically; people from “brown” populations like south asians, latin americans, etc., exhibit a lot of variation even within the family in color. it is only among very dark and very light peoples that there’s not much skin color variation within the family, because there’s no genetic variance on this trait in the first place.
also, racial admixture often leads to a caste system and hierarchy. latin america is a famous example of this.
2. November 2010 at 2:58 pm
But it seems unlikely, at least to me, that interracial marriage will suddenly skyrocket in the places it needs to – like India and China – in order to have a “homogeneous” world population in two hundred or three hundred years.
these examples are useful. turns out india and china are genetically relatively recent hybrid population regions. especially india.
3. November 2010 at 4:39 am
Presumably this is the same Razib who came up with the gem that South Indians are smarter than Northies. Never mind the dubious scientific and empirical basis for that claim, this sort of talk merely creates inferiority complexes and resentment. I hope his “caste system” comment is restricted to Latin America, because he’s lost credibility if he’s implying any genetic origin or markers of it such as skin tone as the basis for the Indian one.
Atheism and race/culture mixing is the road to eugenics. Practioners such as yourself seem to flirt with ideas of genetic superiority of offspring.
Religion & Culture or alternatively lefty ideology (socialism/communism) are civilizational aids against a winner-takes-all Darwinistic society. Of course leftist ideology is a hindrance to tech./economic progress and civil liberties, and is therefore discredited. When you aren’t quite the fittest anymore (inevitable with age), burnout or have a stroke of bad luck such as losing your job, depression, stress, high divorce rates set in. This is the cancer at the heart of your libertarian ideals. It assumes people are elastic machines and that medication, psychiatric counselling etc. will cure these lifestyle diseases replacing coping tools that have evolved and worked for centuries of mankind across cultures.
5. November 2010 at 5:46 pm
“Presumably this is the same Razib who came up with the gem that South Indians are smarter than Northies.”
The lovely thing about the internet is that you can link to the claims that you make. I’d *love* to see a link for this claim about Razib. And I don’t think you understand his caste system comment at all.
Also, I’m glad to hear that my family is on the path to eugenics! And as a “practioner” of race/culture mixing – sounds so fancy!
5. November 2010 at 7:42 pm
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2002/03/why-are-south-indians-so-smart.html
Quote:
A young Bangladeshi-American population geneticist named Razib Khan has done one of the few studies in this area, confirming via survey that professors of mathematics in India are disproportionately Southerners. Razib wrote to me: “…pretty much everyone also agrees the southerners are damn smart. Smarter than the average northerner.”
14. January 2011 at 9:18 am
Wow, Hem racist much?
As a mother of a bi or tri racial child (Indian, Caucasian and Native american)I agree, that genetic diversity is important for survival of the species. For instance my americam brother in law’s child with his first American wife has asthma, severe food allerigies, etc. His second child with his seocnd wife an asian has no health problems. India is racist is not a hidden fact, White (fair skinned) people are revered and preferred. The basis of the caset system is for the very preservation of the desired qualaties, for eg the chitpavan brahmins from Maharasthra, have the highest incidence of green/blue eyes in India if they marry within the caste due to genetic simalarity of both maternal and paternal genes.
Whiel skin color per se has no impact on the populace, brain size does.
I also dont agree with sweeping generalization such as southerners are smarter, northerners are brighter etc. IT wouldnt hold in a statistical analysis.
3. November 2010 at 9:12 am
Razib says: “also, racial admixture often leads to a caste system and hierarchy. latin america is a famous example of this.”
Yes, precisely. Racial mixing isn’t new, and in places where it has happened on a large scale, colorism and color-castism often evolve.
Excellent conclusion, GG, race is very important in many societies (like our US society with white privilege and its repercussions—it IS the ultimate issue for us in many ways, since race trumps class, ability, religion, gender, etc. under the umbrella of white privilege), but in many places where people look more homogenous, race is not relevant and issues of tribe, religion, caste privilege and prejudice come up.
A casual observation would be that individual partners in mixed race relationships often STILL have racial prejudices against their SO’s racial/ethnic group. I do think that interracial partnerships are a small part of the picture in fighting racism and embracing Other (literally and figuratively), but it is more complicated than that.
I don’t want to put any undue pressure on my own mixed race children to be some sort of speshul intercultural bridges for others to walk across to feel “tolerant,” or to be some sort of political symbols. They will be free to navigate their own mixed race, bicultural identities. But I do talk about color and race with them. I think that is important, too. I am wary of the symbolic nature of my children’s racial backgrounds to others, though.
5. November 2010 at 5:51 pm
I think your beliefs and mine are very much in alignment.
Question, though: what do you think of/how do you use statistically valid generalizations when thinking of groups of people. For instance, issues of crime levels in certain African-American communities in the US, divorce rates in the US as a whole, etc. I’ve always seen it as very delicate balance between integrating this information into my worldview in a Bayesian manner and not pre-judging any particular person I’ve met.
6. November 2010 at 10:22 am
Well, stats and life experience don’t always match up. Take for example Pakistan: the female literacy (only 36% literate) and over all literacy rates are shockingly low, the country is 70% rural. However, in our daily life in the US, one won’t meet illiterate and rural Pakistanis. We mostly meet people of urban backgrounds rather than rural-agricultural people, and people who are most certainly literate (many highly educated professionals who are much more educated than the statistically average American at that). Of course that has to do with many factors of circumstance: privilege, who has the means, opportunity, connections, etc. to immigrate to the US whether illegally or for education or greencard lottery or what have you. So clearly, it would be foolish of me to read statistics about Pakistan, without considering any other factors, and presume that based on statistics, any Pakistani person I meet, especially a female, is likely to be illiterate. Even when I travel to Pakistan, I am in the context of being in an urban center in an affluent area. I do meet illiterate people when I visit my inlaws…they are the women who earn for their families as domestic workers, they are the clothes washers, etc and often they have come to the big city from a rural area. But the shopkeepers, clerks, and various people I meet on a daily basis are definitely literate and urban. What then should I take as the “real Pakistan”? Since Pakistan is largely rural and has a high illiteracy rate, should I discount the life experience and narratives of urban, literate people, should I discount affuent or middle-class people (who are called “middle-class” but are statistically most certainly not in the middle)? Obviously they are just as “real” as a person who is more inline with what the statistics say that Pakistanis are. One cannot look at quantitative information alone. To do so is to disregard common sense.
6. November 2010 at 1:04 pm
I don’t think you quite understood my question. For quantitative information to be useful in a Bayesian sense, you obviously have to take into account all of the useful information of your particular situation. So all of your hedging is part of the requirement – you seem to just saying don’t use statistics incorrectly, which I kinda took as a given when asking the question…
If you don’t know enough about Bayesian inference to answer the question, don’t worry about it.
6. November 2010 at 1:32 pm
Re-read the initial question you posed, including the point at which you referenced Bayesian inference. I answered your question very thoroughly, though you interpret my stance and examples as hedging.
Your line here: “You obviously have to take into account all of the useful information of your particular situation”…that is my view.
6. November 2010 at 9:37 pm
*shrug* I don’t think you have enough of my priors to understand exactly what I’m asking, which is fine.
3. November 2010 at 11:04 am
Who says that race mixing means that those involved are railing against the stereotypes? That is a rather large assumption to make. prejudices and complexes of all types will always continue. It is naive to say that changing the world’s “skin color’ alone will make any significant difference. Skin color is not the basis for prejudices, it is rather that prejudice roots itself in skin color because it is so strikingly obvious. In order to change “racism,” we must change the mind, not the reproductive trends. Being mixed race does not preclude a person from expressing racism , either.
maybe we are too focussed on the appearance and not enough on the social/psychological. Besides, just because a (for example) white american from New York and an Indian (from India) get together and have children,
and let’s say that both families come to terms with this arrangement and change their once negative viewpoints;
it doesn’t mean that they still can’t/don’t hold prejudices and stereotypes against Nigerians or Arabs or Pakistanis or australians or Texans.
And, who has children to make a point about racism, anyway.
and, it is not fair to make your children be that bridge.
and, I know family members who say just that: “At least they can be that link between the races.”
I say:
this is a child, not a chain…. if you want a link, then be one.
sure, children can, sometimes, serve to be that link, but when they chose and it should not define their entire life.
sometimes, people put such emphasis on it that they make it the most important thing.
My children are mixed race.
But, that is just one facet of their being.
they are also sports enthusiasts, music lovers and they all love a cookout every now and then.
since I am blind, they were also children of a blind parent.
But, I didn’t want that to define them, either.
sure, they had experiences that many children lacked,
but, my blindness didn’t shape them so much that their life/lives revolved around it.
In fact, that can cause a negative reaction and the children can shun that specific part of their being: being embarrassed about it which will result in the opposite effect of the above suggestions.
5. November 2010 at 5:58 pm
I agree.
I think a large part of your point on “still holding other prejudices” is that we tend to make exceptions in our over-arching beliefs for specific individuals. Thus, the concept (typically subconscious) of “Oh, you, you’re my friend, you aren’t like all those other blacks/Muslims/homosexuals/?.” It’s all tied into “other-ing” people different from you – they’re not like your group, so they must be wrong in some significant way.
3. November 2010 at 12:29 pm
The Leftist Pseudo secularist and communists in India have come up with a brilliant social engineering idea of paying tax payer money for inter caste marriages. Yes. the silly Indian congress government actually pays out money for this.
I often wonder how that would out here in the US if President Obama announces such a program to pay out tax funded dole for inter racial marriages.
5. November 2010 at 6:00 pm
Eh, the US doles out tax money for plenty of other silly projects. Earmarks will be the death of this country, I sometimes think. We laugh at India’s intercaste marriage bribes, you laugh at our bridges to nowhere…
5. November 2010 at 6:26 pm
Actually, I think that we do this within groups and with certain groups.
“while someone’s husband might be the exception,
it is also true that while people might not hold stereotypes toward black people (for example) they might toward immigrants.
I admit that this holds true for my own family.
somehow there just has to be an “us” and “ehem.” there has to be someone that we hold inferior to ourself. And, it also gives us an excuse to be superior and/or to say certain things.
the worst are those:
“i don’t mean to offend, but (insert stereotype).”
BTW, did you know that blind people have perfect pitch and a great memory?
(smile)
5. November 2010 at 10:34 pm
Never mind the dubious scientific and empirical basis for that claim, this sort of talk merely creates inferiority complexes and resentment.
well, that was like 10 years ago. man, was i young!
that being said, it’s empirically clear that north indians are backward vis-a-vis southies excepting punjab when it comes things like literacy. i’m more certain of that than i was 10 years ago. there are some caveats here, gujarat and punjab are economically advanced, but socially regressive in many ways. kerala is not to wealthy, but socially progressive. UP and bihar get the worst of both worlds.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/08/indias-deep-north/
but i don’t see north indians feel that they’re inferior. i know brown people a lot more now personally than i did 10 years ago, and my impression is that north indians feel racially superior to southerners (as well as bengalis, oriyas and assamese), who they perceive to be an uglier blacker race (just as pakistanis perceive UPites to be uglier and blacker, and persians view pakistanis as an ugly and black race). this is naturally an average, and indian americans tend to have these issues to a lesser extent i think, because brown is just brown in the USA. despite the south’s superiority on human development indices vis-a-vis the north it seems that the hindi speaking north is still culturally hegemonic and feels no inferiority. at least judging by the stories that friends from kerala have told me about the racism they experienced when they went to school in delhi on account of their dark skin.
of course south indians and bengalis are OK with the racism on some level, since they perpetuate it. i’ve heard bengalis try to distinguish themselves from south indians, while i’ve seen people from andhara pradesh trying to differentiate themselves from “madrasis.”
6. November 2010 at 1:07 am
@razib
I don’t know what your point is other than there’s a lot of state-wise differences in India. You can’t compare by defining South India as 4 states and North India as the other 22, simply because you can find more basket cases out of 22 than 4!
India is an unorganized agrarian economy for the most part, hence regions with moderate climates (peninsular India & states with a coast) & arable land have an unnatural advantage which masks cultural or political differences. Also there’s no constitutional requirement to balance the State budget (unlike the USA), so the Federal govt plays favorites with who gets to run up a deficit. Without going in to too much detail, the electoral arithmetic favours certain states more frequently than others. In short, no point in stereotyping the populace of the state of Punjab, Tamil Nadu etc.
Indians frequently take the piss out of each other. Bongs are bookish russophilic pinkos, people from North East are slutty chinks, Tamilians lick food off 5 fingers at once, and Bihari itself is a pejorative! As a southie, when I’m mocked for my darkness, I usually remind my beloved northies of their mothers love for Arab and British men
Perhaps your mallu friends were not ready for the brutal Indian playground. How the heck is asserting your cultural identity perpetuating racism? Only a PC boob would offended over these things.
11. November 2010 at 5:45 pm
Have you decided to settle down in the Bay area? I guess you and your husband plan to have kids someday. Don’t you think your kids would feel more comfortable and well-adjusted in an racially/ethnically diverse place like this with a lot of affluent and successful Indians around? I have heard a lot of horror stories about Indian-Americans who grew up in all-white areas or areas without a large Indian population. Most of these kids grow up feeling confused, lonely and rootless. They go through a phase where they start hating their own heritage and background (these are the classic ABCDs that one hears about), and some of them eventually come to terms with it, but many don’t. Have you decided where you would want to raise your future children ? (As for me, I have a 4 yr old son, and I would not want him to grow up anywhere else in the U.S. except the Bay area)
11. November 2010 at 6:28 pm
the truth is that many children struggle with identity and such. the whole story of the tragic mulato (as it first began) is largely a myth. Should there be representation of both cultures? yes, certainly. But, I also know well adjusted children who grew up largely being the minority. It depends on how their parents raise them and how integrated that the parents try to be in both cultures which can happen in a smaller setting. Yes, finding children like themselves are important. But, having positive role models is even more important and having a possitive outlook on one’s culture (from both parents) — celebrating the richness of both cultures is a far better thing than location.
some parents have made it work in much smaller cities. And: why San Francisco? there are many other cities with a large Indian population. when your child is the only one, it does take more work, but, like I said, it can be done.
17. November 2010 at 12:12 pm
“Presumably this is the same Razib who came up with the gem that South Indians are smarter than Northies.”
Based on GDP and GDP per capita, India is the only country in the world where dark skinned populations are performing better than light skinned populations. For example, dark skinned states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu perform better than the light skinned states of Kashmir, UP, Bihar and MP. Punjab is the only exception…the only light skinned state which is on par with dark skinned Tamil Nadu or Kerala. Everywhere else, from Italy to Spain, to Australia and the US, Brazil and Argentina, light skinned populations perform much better. Having said this, and despite being economically advanced, dark skinned Tamils and Keralites still aspire to get the north Indian skin color…use skin whiteners and all other related stuff to make them look white.
“Also, I’m glad to hear that my family is on the path to eugenics! And as a “practioner” of race/culture mixing – sounds so fancy!”
Genetic or not, mixed race kids who are not from broken homes perform much better than even smarter Asians. During the 1950s and early 1960s, foreign students were only allowed to stay in the US or Canada if they married an American. During that time period, 100% of the Indian and other Asian students who stayed in the US married an American, and in 95% of the cases married a white American. Since most of the folks who came to study were men, they married white American women. Most of their kids turned out smarter than the average American or the average Asian…one particular kid was extremeley sharp. He finished High School at 15, graduated college at 19 and is now the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narayana_Kocherlakota
http://www.minneapolisfed.org/about/whoweare/president.cfm
And his parents…
http://books.google.com/books?id=VDTrOZlUweoC&pg=PA173&lpg=PA173&dq=kocherlakota+university+of+manitoba&source=bl&ots=X6CnUzxh3q&sig=fFqZczNSMFBTdqMvhZYNccciBls&hl=en&ei=XAzkTL_KLoa8lQfPm7GIDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=kocherlakota%20university%20of%20manitoba&f=false
18. November 2010 at 10:18 am
My point of view is coverd in this post `We Won’t All Be Brown` at http://www.mixedindifferentshades.net/blog/2010/11/we-won%e2%80%99t-all-be-brown.
13. December 2011 at 11:40 am
What is strange about the way we discuss race is that it is not objective to all races, and mostly, according to it’s consensus, whites are the only ones, whom if they claim necessity to their existence, are punished in form of negative insinuation, being called racist.
A couple of examples:
Taking pride in your black heritage is seen as a right, at the same time, taking pride in white heritage is racist, further more, if anything is to be credited to white’s this is claimed to have been achieved on an individual level, at the same time we have no problem in blaming the white race for it’s atrocities towards other nations and peoples. To acknowledge any form of genetical advantage to for example blacks, like natural athleticism, is accepted, to acknowledge any genetical advantage in being white is called racism.
See the pattern?
As the term itself suggests negative white behavior to be reason for it’s usage, it is difficult to identify that whites are in fact the term’s, in it’s usage, own victims.
A strong recommendation is the documentary “A conversation about race” by Chris Bodeker.
15. December 2011 at 2:37 pm
To say that mixed race children always perform better is simply not true. Let’s say if whites have a general standard in what they perform, the span in which mix race children perform is wider, but does not necessarily have a higher average.
Race mixing is in other words much like a gamble in what qualities a child might inherit or not.
The argument that the body gets more options in building itself the way it needs to, also fails, because the body does not recognize what are good genetic traits. Genetic traits are inherited randomly, and a child may just as well end up with undesired traits from each side. Though under evolutionary pressure, race mixing opens up doors and opportunities, with options of good features from each race to come forward. But with no evolutionary pressure it may go any direction, as negative features are not eliminated.
1. February 2012 at 12:49 pm
You and people like you are the reason behind the destruction of the very same diversity that you preach.
As a consequence of your actions,this world will be less diverse,eventually leading to all humans having the same shade and features thus rendering global travel without a cause.The only difference you will be noticing is the difference between landscapes and not the people.
I would absolutely hate to be living in such world,and that’s I’m happy to know that it will not happen during my life time.
6. January 2013 at 2:52 am
prom dresses 2013
10. February 2013 at 12:30 pm
There are two scenarios, the short term is that we would like to hold our identity as far as possible, gets relations with in your race, region and community. But we have opted to come out and merge with advanced developed society, the inter racial relation are bound to happen whether we like it or not. This is the long term scenarios.