Reverse Racism

One of the races for City Council in Seattle is between a Hispanic woman and a African-Japanese-American. Some folks have gotten upset because the Hispanic is encouraging other Hispanics to vote for her. Isnt that shocking???

I think this is a tempest in a tea pot BUT it is worthwhile thinking about how race issue is used.

Lets start with language ...............

"Hispanic ain't a race!"

Nor is it true that "color" as the dividing line in the US is more important than other ethnic issues. For certain races it is but not others. African descent, for example, is a lot different than Dravidian (aka Tamil or S. Indian) or Australian in terms of our society even thought genetically these three popel are closely related. Caribbeans do as well as Koreans and better than Euroes in their first and second gen. as immigrants.

One of the weirdest part of our system of Nuremberg Laws, is that Phiilipinoes are not a member of most official lists of people of color! OTOH Arabs are though Jew and Iranians are not,

Unfortunately the term "people of color" is often used as a code word. For example, it may shock most folks to realize that African Americans are a minority in the Seatle Public Schools. The African American community, a very agrresive ethnic group, however dominates SPS in part by equating its interests to those of people of color. At the UW, there are affairs that intentionally divide people on the basis of whether they are POC or not.

Apparently someone thinks if you are a wealthy person from Toledo with pure Visigoth ancestry you are colored but a poor person from Appalachia is only a minority if she has a minimum amount of African "blood?"


In my own case my ancestors on one side are Ashkenazim (german descended Russin Jews) and the other Sephardim (Spanish). Having lived in the African American communir=ty as well and grown up as the only Jewish kid in an antisemitic neighborhood, I refuse to ever accept the desgnation "white" or "caucasian." This sometimes creates crises when bureaucrats say I MUST be one of the officlial races. Lately "other" has appeared. Or ... being half Sephardic should I list myself as "Hispanic?"

Are "others," people of color?

Back at Harell and Velasquez, they both tout racial/ethnic identities and frankly I see nothing wrong with that as long as it s not exclusionary. Irespect the chices of people who decide to vote for either one, at least in part, because of identity. It is certainly better than the feminist arguement that women should vote for women regardless of party, race, etc.