Emily draws my attention to this. Given that Indians are Caucasians, as "whites" are, it’s not even crossing one of those entirely crazy and invented barriers of race. The woman is wibbling about how to describe her own offspring. Emily goes deeper into it than I would.
Really, anyone unable to see that the definition "my daughter" trumps any other that anyone might wish to use or impose really has no business having children in the first place.
In
Strange woman describes herself and her own offspring thus: “We may look a bit peculiar”.
I believe that genetic diversity in human populations is important. Any part of the population that restricts its gene pool isn’t doing itself any favours in the long run. The risks are inherited weakness and susceptibility to genetic diseases. A mixed population has more hybrid vigour. Given this basic fact of biology, it is rational and scientific that human societies all over the world ought to become less vocal and more tolerant of such unions.
In this case, the mother’s prejudice against her the influence of the father’s origins on her daughter is quite likely to stem from her selfish concern that her daughter reminds her of her ex, as another commentator on that blog speculated. From the cultural side of things, it is important that the child is brought up with a knowledge of her father’s language, in case at some later date she decides to pursue independent researches into that part of her heritage (such as finding out who her paternal relatives are, and saying hello to them).
Good points, Opinionated. However, on the “rational and scientific” direction for society to take, you might be interested to know that Richard Dawkins in “The Selfish Gene” suggests that xenophobia and the attendant preferences for those of the same race, nationality, etc. may be an extreme form of kin selection, i.e. the assistance of related others in proportion to their relatedness to you. With the massive limitation of only past experience and visual and olfactory cues to determine who is related to you, broad generalizations are a necessity. Being racist may be or may have once been adaptive.
All that said, as someone in a mixed-race relationship, dating a girl of mixed backgrounds, I personally think outbreeding is the way forward genetically.
Of course, the definition might be one-upped by “my son” – but that’s probably just my personal prejudice talking………
Philip Hybrid vigour? He’s rubbish at cricket! The geneticist in me welocmes it all, but the security guards at German airports don’t take kindly to two British adults (one of whom is of subcontinental origin) trying to take son and heir out of the country with a German passport.
It leads to lots of “please come this way sir, take off your clothes and we’ll have a good look up your rectum. Despite what gay friends of mine have said, this isn’t actually much fun.”
Extract from echange of emails between me and an IPPR researcher:
“Dear L***
Are you still allowed to say
“mixed-race”? I thought you had to say “mixed ethnicity” (you use both
terms).”
“Dear Mark,
… and thank you for pointing out my oversight on ‘mixed-race’ definition. Technically the Census collects data on what it calls “ethnic origin” and not race, and uses a “mixed” category rather than a mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity.
I will bear that in mind in future work”
“given this basic fact” What basic fact?
The most effect human groups have always clung together as birds of a feather,
Diversity as it is now proclaimed is just the states way of repression the dislike of mass immigration of strange groups.
Such groups have clashed throughout history – often bloodily.
Go on – you will next be waving the word racist around.
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