Got it
Um, everyone's figured out the "gender/race as construct" subtext around here by now, right? Excluding the tourists, who have enough problems with the text, period?
Figured out what bothered me about MixedFolks.com. The same thing that really annoys me about the Multiracial Activist types.
If you define "black" as "totally, 100% unmixed African ancestry", then I don't think any of us qualify. Guess you could do DNA testing to check, for what it's worth, but the majority of black people are mixed, or multiracial, or whateverthefuck you want to call it. If everyone is part of a continuum, why should some folks with more recent white ancestry claim uniqueness? Or is that a stupid question?
Realized this while washing the dreads, which may have been a mistake in retrospect. I don't really have black hair, so it doesn't behave the way people expect it to. This caused my locktician no end of grief before the things finally took.
So race does matter. At least when you're getting your hair done.
Or shaving it. I've mentioned the no-shave chits in the military before, yes? And how black guys were more likely to get them, because we're more likely to get razor bumps?
Then there's body hair. Um. Not much to say on that one. Arms, no. Chest, I can count them on the fingers of one hand. Legs, I would lose a competition with a French woman.
And yet, despite this evidence, I still think race remains a social construct.
Will probably add links or something to this later. Just downloaded Netscape 7 final, and want to see what it can do.
After I finally realized there was a Mozilla version of the Stumbleupon toolbar, too. . .
Update 8/30: Neoteny?
From the results I have received so far, it is apparent that though American Indians are amongst the least hairy ethnic groups, people of mixed race are often hairy. But, hairy men of mixed race which includes American Indian often grow their body hair later than other hairy men. Some extreme cases include men who did not become hairy until their mid to late twenties. This should not be confused with the tendency of hairy men to continue growing hair (in new places) well into their thirties. This suggests to me that the American Indian race is generally hairless because of neoteny. Neoteny is the retention of juvenile physical characteristics in the adult individual.
Guess it all depends on what you consider normal. Oh, right, white people are normal. The rest of us deviate more or less from that baseline. Blah.
There's a (mercifully) brief bit on The Idea of Race at the University of Washington's Kennewick Man Virtual Exhibit:
Some physical characteristics such as black hair are common among many, but not all, Native Americans. Others, including head and body shape, height, skin color, and facial hair, vary significantly. Native American men from Pacific Coast tribes, for example, often have heavy facial hair while other Native American men have none.
I get five-o'clock-shadow after about a week, myself.
This bit should annoy the tourists:
Nineteenth-Century Ideas about RaceThe nineteenth-century idea that there are only three human races -- Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid -- emerged from European folk concepts of the Middle Ages about the significance of physical differences like skin color, head shape, or type of hair. All people were thought to belong to one of these races and most authorities believed that these physical differences also implied differences in intelligence, abilities, and general merit as human beings. Some believed that such "racial" differences justified social inferiority, colonial control, and even slavery. This attitude is illustrated by the following quote from the 1800s.
"The indominable, courageous, proud Indianin -- how very different a light he stands by the side of the submissive, obsequious, imitative negro, or by the side of the tricky, cunning, and cowardly Mongolian! Are not these facts indications that the different races do not rank upon one level in nature?"
Louis Agassiz, Professor of Geology and Zoology, Harvard University, 1850
The ones who actually read Gene Expression that is. I tried after a. . . discussion with the proprieter at Matt Welch's a while back. Yeah, that was time well spent.
Unlike with lactose intolerance, I couldn't find any stats about what percent of the planet tends towards more or less body hair. Seems to be the same thing again, though; northern European = "normal", rest of the planet = "deviant".
Charming.
And yes, there was something about this in the latest Bitch. I swear, this is the last time I'm ripping off their shit. Honest.
Not that any of the links I looked at even mention body hair on women. The dainty creatures have none, apparently.
Comments
netscape 7 final! yaaaaaaaaaay!
and heck with the french women, almost anyone of any race could lose a leghair competition with me. are there leghair competitions? i could win. maybe i'll stop shaving again.
Posted by: kd | August 29, 2002 11:25 PM
You know, I was going to link to you in this, but decided against it. I was afraid you might have been offended.
Is it even possible to offend the people around here?
NS 7 was a lot more stable than the pre-release. And it has buddy icons. It is Good.
Posted by: Aaron | August 30, 2002 5:35 AM
My beloved has almost no body hair -- he's a Cantonese/Mixed British Isles Flotsam crossbreed. And, apparently like Aaron, it takes him approximately a week to get decent five o'clock shadow.
Me personally, I don't view this as a problem or a sign of evolutationary immaturity (as if!), I view this a convenience, as any girl who's ever had stubble burns on the insides of her inner thighs darn well ought to.
Posted by: hanne | August 30, 2002 1:21 PM
Evolutationary. Goooooood. I am on lots of decongestants. Can you tell?
Posted by: hanne | August 30, 2002 1:21 PM
Netscape 7? How about Mozilla 1.1? Anyway, I'm with you on the multiracial thing. I really think damn near everybody in this country is mixed unless they just got off the boat. And if you think about it, they were probably mixed w/ something in their own country. But really, we're all humans. If an alien species showed up today, would they care about our skin color? See:
Racism rears it's ugly head
Posted by: chb | August 30, 2002 1:39 PM
Me personally, I don't view this as a problem or a sign of evolutationary immaturity (as if!), I view this a convenience, as any girl who's ever had stubble burns on the insides of her inner thighs darn well ought to.
Lucky, lucky woman. My German/Irish crossbreed husband's got the exact opposite problem. ;)
Posted by: VASpider | August 30, 2002 2:00 PM
I think I like funny-spelling doped-up Hanne better. But so far the spelling seems to be the only differen-- ok, I'll stop.
chb, I'm still using Mozilla mostly. But the IM in Netscape seems to work better than Gaim, and there's that spell check thing in email. Plus, it keeps the Mozilla no-popups settings.
VASpider, please tell me your husband has a beard or something, and doesn't shave every single day God sent. I just can't imagine having to do that.
Posted by: Aaron | August 30, 2002 2:46 PM
Aaron, i would never take offense to being linked about leghair. i mean, i brought this upon myself anyway :)
now, chin hair. we don't talk about chin hair. those are stray eyebrows.
Posted by: kd | August 30, 2002 3:22 PM
Ok, here's a Fun comparison for VASpider and Hanne. My Scots-Irish-Swede-American husband, whom I adore without reservation, has like kudzu-speed growth of thick beard (five o'clock shadow by noon, and it's red! So cute!) BUT also zippo body hair. Poor guy is stuck with shaving despite his sensitive melatonin-poor skin, and has no chest hair to match his sweet stubbly face. I can outgrow him easy on leg hair. Heck, I've got hairier *feet* than he does, courtesy of my Italian heritage.
And yes, Aaron, he does keep facial hair -- a stylin' van dyke -- rather than shave every day. I think if he had to shave his whole face every day he'd die of terminal razorburn.
Posted by: garrity | August 30, 2002 3:54 PM
Um, my girl doesn't have any facial hair. Score another one for the lesbians.
Posted by: Michelle | August 30, 2002 4:32 PM
VASpider, please tell me your husband has a beard or something, and doesn't shave every single day God sent. I just can't imagine having to do that.
He has a little goatee and moustache, but needs to shave the rest every single day. Damn Kraut ancestry, I'll tell you what. He's tried for the full beard, but it just doesn't look right on his face. It does give him the added joy of being able to experiment with different facial hair looks (something he seems to love) with relative ease, though, since if something gets mucked up, well, he can fix it in a day or so.
Garrity -- he's also much the same with the chest hair. Go figure, enh?
I have to shave every day, too. That's a goddamned pain. If I could afford to have all my leg hair permanently removed? I'd do it, and in a heartbeat. Hate the stuff.
Posted by: VASpider | August 30, 2002 6:29 PM
Err, by much the same, I mean much the same as Garrity's husband, in that he hasn't got much to speak of. :P
Posted by: VASpider | August 30, 2002 6:31 PM
was Hanne talking about facial or pubic hair?
'cause while I don't press the idea of waxing (as much fun as it is for me, in the hands of a trained professional, but then I keep my gonads on the inside), careful shearing (so as to avoid the stubble problem) of the boy tackle is a pretty fun passtime...
Posted by: Jessica | August 31, 2002 12:28 AM
I was talking about body hair, period. Aside from the eyebrows and the hair on his head, my boy's just not got a lot of body hair. Pubes, yes, and armpits, but not a hell of a lot of it. He's got very very limited facial hair and it grows very slowly -- so little facial hair, in fact, that for many years he just plucked his couple-dozen whiskers rather than ever shaving them. And he has literally no hair on his legs, chest, butt, back, or any of the other places where many penis-people grow fur on a regular basis... he's sleek.
Posted by: hanne | August 31, 2002 3:40 PM
I want to say that everyone is mixed. Although I am Black, most people think I'm an Islander: Haitian, Jamaican or Dominican when they first see me. My hair (thick waves) and features really throws them off. If I wannna get technical, I tell the rest of my origins which apparently, stick out like a porcupine's quills: Scots- Irish(from slavery), Cherokee Indian and Mexican.
Posted by: Zipporah Thelmon | September 4, 2002 5:36 PM
Well, some of us are more mixed than others.
We get called Black.
People think my sister is 'Rican. She only knows enough Spanish to get arrested and watch ¡Llevatelo!
Posted by: Aaron | September 5, 2002 7:43 AM
Ya know maybe if black people of darker skin tone wouldn't hate on us light skinned and biracial blacks we wouldn't feel compelled to seek out our other halves. Everbody want to feel wanted and appreciated in some way or fit in. They call us stuck up, or conceited. Why? because the ash on are legs doesn't show? As a very light skinned women of Black and Portuguese decent i'm here to tell ya,"DONT HATE APPRIECIATE!! Holla.
Posted by: Dawny D | December 24, 2002 11:09 PM
Welcome to the site, Dawny D.
But, um, that thing you just did? Posting to a months-old entry?
Don't do that.
It's been long enough that I can't even work up the enthusiasm to ask whether I'm meant to fall under "we" or "they."
No, not even with the all caps.
Don't do that either, by the way.
Posted by: Aaron | December 25, 2002 6:31 AM
In response to Dawny D's comment, as a dark mulatto, the case as described in your account of how things are is exactly the same position of the "light skinned" blacks. I think the problem is deeper that how you understand and reiterate it: blacks are divided - they hate their race, and blame each other for it. It is a shame.
Posted by: K | July 1, 2005 4:21 AM
Wrong. The Multiracial Activist (I am the publisher) does not advocate any form of blood quantum politics.
TMA is long on the record for embracing and welcoming ANYONE of any mixture who self-identifies as multiracial.
I don't care who you are - if you consider yourself to be multiracial then I ain't gonna be the one to try to stop you. And I'll recognize your mixture and defend your right to self-identify.
Let us dispense with the racialist misinformation and start telling the truth about the multiracial movement.
Posted by: James Landrith
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October 5, 2006 10:28 PM