that brings somebody to mind....
Americas First "Tiny American".. ..Presidential...Candidate??
Posted on 04/16/2015 7:14:17 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Not long ago, the New York Times uncovered the artifact that Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush had once listed himself as “Hispanic” on a Florida voter-registration form.
Bush is married to a Mexican American. He lived for a number of years in South America and speaks Spanish fluently.
Maybe he has consciously assumed a Hispanic identity. Or perhaps he did not think there was much of a difference between “white” and “Hispanic.” Or, as he said, he simply checked the wrong box by accident.
Vijay Chokal-Ingam, whose family immigrated from India, and who is the brother of sitcom-actress Mindy Kaling, recently confessed that he, too, once changed his ethnic identity in frustration over not being admitted to medical school. The dark-skinned Chokal-Ingam shaved his head, used his middle name Jojo, and was admitted to Saint Louis Medical School as a minority African American. Was he or was he not “black”?
Bush and Chokal-Ingam are not the only ones who may be confused about ethnic identity or may believe such identity can be assumed or alleged instead of being innate.
Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren for much of her career advantageously checked off “Native American” when under consideration for law professorships. Although there was no concrete evidence of any such ethnic pedigree, Warren simply cited her grandparents’ family stories about their heritage as if they were proof enough to claim official and expedient Native American minority status.
Former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill for decades masqueraded as a Native American activist. Apparently he either wished to be a Native American, or saw careerist advantages in feigning such a minority pedigree — or both.
Churchill’s ethnic get-up and long-successful ruse suggest that society does not quite know who is and who is not Native American — or even which criteria we should use to audit such claims.
During the Trayvon Martin shooting case, the New York Times apparently wished to diminish defendant George Zimmerman’s claim of minority status (he is half-Peruvian), so it coined the term “white Hispanic” for him.
Barack Obama, whose mother was a white American and whose father was a black Kenyan, used to go by the name Barry Soetoro (the last name of his Indonesian stepfather). Since college he has preferred his birth name, Barack Hussein Obama. Apparently at different times, a young Obama felt more comfortable with different ethnic nomenclatures — and what they conveyed to others.
In all these cases, ethnic identity apparently could be reinvented, or at least tweaked.
People can change their gender if they so choose or present themselves as either sex regardless of traditional definitions. Is race likewise becoming a shifting construct, often predicated on changing nomenclature, accent, dress, and superficial appearance?
Will “trans-racialists” assume another race in the manner that the transgendered now cross sexual lines?
Does the fact that many careerists and politicians can so easily get away with massaging their ethnic identities reflect the fact that race itself has become a meaningless construct? What is the greater fraud — creating or policing ethnic identities?
We are more likely to identify Senator Ted Cruz as a Latino than former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. That’s not because of appearance, but rather only because Cruz’s father was Cuban and he has a Latino surname, while Richardson’s mother was Mexican and he doesn’t have a Latino surname.
Had George Zimmerman just Latinized his first name and gone by his mother’s maiden name, becoming Jorge Mesa, would the New York Times have been so quick to render him a white Hispanic? Zimmerman, the person, remained the same. But were our views of him supposed to be conditioned by his particular ethnic construct?
When local newscasters trill their R’s, and hyphenate or add accents to their last names, are they afraid that otherwise their language, appearance, or lifestyle might not so easily showcase their minority status, which is a plus in the media?
Perhaps Jeb Bush could be called transracial. By virtue of his marriage, his Spanish fluency and his years of residence in Spanish-speaking countries, is he more Latino than are third-generation Americans with names like Nicole Lopez or Juanita Brown who speak no Spanish and have never visited Latin America?
America is a multiracial society due to immigration, intermarriage, and assimilation. Perhaps it is time to cut out the bumper sticker self-labeling and instead accept that in our ethnically mixed-up nation, race has become an incidental construct rather than essential to our careers and personas.
Otherwise, do we want to return to the one-drop rule of the Old Confederacy, or the ethnic spoils system of 19th-century Austria-Hungary?
Should we wear bright government DNA badges of various colors to authenticate our racial pedigree and to prevent the current epidemic of ethnic identity fraud?
— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals.
Yo Sup..
Im feeling like an “African” American this morning.
This afternoon who knows ..i might me get all kinna hispanic for a while
This is stupid ...gender is not fluid at all it...it a physical characteristic at the most basic DNA level XX or XY.
race is a fluid characteristic in that it can be any dna mix from one end of the spectrum to the other..
and then ethnicity is truly just cultural
Anyone familiar with the attire, attitude and tastes of white suburban high school kids can safely answer, "Yes."
I always fill out black or Native American on forms.
I think it saved me .5% on my mortgage.
Just as the left is using the concept of “self-defined gender” to destroy the definition of what God has made separate - male and female created He them,
self-defining “race” could help destroy the power-base of the left by making “race” as meaningless as it really should be. We’re all of one “race” - humans.
The flip side of this idea has been around for a long time. To the Left, you aren’t really “black,” or “gay,” or “Asian,” or “Latino” or a “woman” if you hold conservative positions.
Amen!
guten Morgen!
Ya thats what Im a thinking.. Ya!!
Someone could identify as Napoleon, but we wouldn’t be obliged to call them “Your Majesty”. Traditionally, we would bring them to a place where they could get the professional help they need.
I’m the world’s tallest midget (6’3”)
Race is not the same thing as “ethnicity”.... Hispanic is not a race, the title is misleading, regardless of what he checked in the box.
[[I always fill out black or Native American on forms.]]
so doesn’t Elizabeth warren
I think all white and black people in America should declare themselves Hispanic, and illegal aliens so we can git us some of that free obamamoney and free licenses, and free college educamation, and free welfare, and free food stamps, and free healthcare, and never have to worry about being pulled over by police or else we scream ‘racial profiling’
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