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Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
You may not have heard of the term before, but this can be related to the White crisis of identity. It suggests that Whiteness is in crisis because of a lack of any clear or positive set of identifying characteristics. What is meant by non-positive is that the only understandable way of identifying Whiteness is as a race to which all other races are compared. This is a huge problem for all non-White races, socially, politically, culturally, and in the name of human rights. But the stumbling block for all parties is this very notion that we don't really know what Whiteness is. It isn't a state of being, it is a state of non-being. The Chinese in this case didn't want to be a part of that because that isn't their experience.
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Nice exposition Baraka, I think it sums it up quite nicely. I think there is a cognitive dissonance associated here with the wider discussion on race in general too. What I am trying to drive at in a weird roundabout way is pointing out certain aspects of the great race debate that bears study.
1. Breaking down black and white
2. Looking beyond phenotypes
3. Race, ethnicity, or culture? Determinants of social interaction
4. From manifest destiny (age of imperialism, colonialism) to independence and globalisation.
5. Institutionalized racism and the subconscious hierarchal ranking of race and ethnicity
The OP was kind of a trigger piece in that it was sort of wacky and involves elements of the aforementioned points.
Yeah, I was hoping Healer and Mandy would stop by too along with Sapiens and Abaya.
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Originally Posted by onesnowyowl
They're kinda busy planning a wedding at the moment, but I certainly hope one of them pops by and weighs in.
I feel it's impossible for me to really comment on something like this, given that I don't live in SA and didn't have to suffer or watch others suffer under apartheid. For someone my age, here in the United States, apartheid is a fuzzy memory at best. But like Jazz, I think this is an attempt, at the very least, to right past wrongs.
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I disagree. Of course you can comment on this. You are educated and informed and can formulate your own opinion. It's not all about Apartheid either, but more so about race and how we perceive that in general. You work with kids right? You must have observed their behaviour, especially in social group settings. How do they interact? how do they perceive their peers and their environment? Do they respond differently to gender and ethnic characteristics? If so, where did they learn that?
Something like that.