I know I said last week that I would be discussing Asian Americans and inter-racial dating. And then my week got away from me. And I know that in July I began to broach the subject of inter-racial dating and why some inter-racial couples may seem to be more acceptable than others. For example, Asian American women paired with white men seem to be a prevalent pairing that we see out and about and reflected in popular culture, television.
[Of course, the reality is that Asian Americans are barely visible on tv or in films, but on the rare occassion when they are, the Asian American woman-white man as a romantic pairing is not uncommon--Lucy Liu in the Charlie Angels movies is paired with the former Friends guy, for example.]
And in this previous post I also acknowledged that inter-racial pairings between black women and men of other racial groups and Asian American men and women of other racial groups seems to be the least common pairings that we see.
And interestingly enough, since I am not the first person to make this observation, there are people who have started websites and dating blogs that are dedicated to "BlAsian" couples: black women romantically linked with Asian/Asian American men.
[For example, see this recent Asian Week piece]
And I do wonder about this. I mean, not the specific pairing of African American women with Asian American men, but the idea that these two demographics may be in the category of those who do not date across the color line.
[And I suppose I should add the caveat that I am concentrating largely on straight relationships, because that's the population that has largely been studied in Sociological circles and that I'm familiar with in terms of anecdotal evidence, although I think that interracial dating taboos and issues are similar within queer relationships.]
And one of the other things I have been thinking about regarding inter-racial relationships, is whether there isn't also a correlation between community acceptance and/or the prevalence of certain pairings. I'm not a sociologist and don't have stats readily at hand, but from what I recall from reading various articles on this subject, Asian Americans of either gender are more likely to date and marry white Americans than other groups. And part of me wonders about the acceptability of dating and marrying inter-racially outside of a white demographic. Because anecdotally I have heard of some Asian American families being very opposed to their sons/daughters dating let alone marrying African Americans.
I'm not trying to say that all Asian families are conservative and racist. Nor am I saying that all Asian Americans support inter-racial dating/marriage with white Americans. But I do think that Asian American families have their own prejudices to grapple with--and I wonder how we can start to address these issues in Asian American communities (I don't mean within academia or activist circles, I mean literally in the suburban areas where people live).
But maybe I'm wrong. My own family has varying attitudes towards inter-racial dating, whether white or black (or any other identity--although interestingly enough, my paternal grandparents were livid when they discovered one of my cousins went to the prom with her Japanese American childhood friend because they had lived through the bombing of China by the Japanese army during WWII and hated the Japanese with a loathing that can only be bred by living through war).
Any thoughts?
Showing posts with label interracial relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interracial relationships. Show all posts
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
American default modes: white men
From page 72 in psychologist Maria Root's book, Love's Revolution: Interracial Marriage. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001:
"The philosopher Lewis Gordon provides an analysis of the structural power enacted through race and gender that links the dialogue between them. Gordon points out that from a white point of view, the assumed race of the human race is white. To be non-white is to be racialized in an anti-black world. To be raceless is to be 'pushed up toward whiteness. Gordon also notes that for centuries the Western tradition has configured the gender of the human race as male. So although power may be defined as genderless and raceless, the default values for power are male and white.
Gordon contends that a hierarchy of sexual desirability naturally follows from this view of gender and race. Given the traditional Western view of power as white and male, white women can be constructed as black by their gender. This might help to explain why pairings of white women with black men are more common than pairings of black women with white men, a phenomenon that flies in the face of early exchange theories. White women and black men are not so distant from each other in social location."
Monday, July 7, 2008
Monday's Mixed-race Musings
I realized that when I wrote about the beginning of a mixed-race America, namely that you get here through inter-racial relationships, I didn't really talk about the politics of interracial dating/marriage/procreation.
So I thought I'd return to this topic since this blog is called "Mixed Race America" and because I suspect that a few readers are interested in these topics.
What I wrote about on July 1 was the hostility that certain gendered/raced pairs encounter by members of a majority culture and members of their own ethnic communities. There's a lot to be said about the politics of interracial dating.
First thing I'll say is that it's complicated. To try to have an in-depth and honest conversation about interracial dating requires an ability to get beyond cliches of "Love sees no color" as well as charges of selling out the race or desiring white privilege through interracial relationships (that's for those people who are a member of a racial minority dating a member of the current racial majority).
Second, I think it's rare for people to make decisions of an intimate nature on pure politics. In other words, I know that people have preferences and are motivated by political factors. But the truth is, finding someone you truly connect with is difficult. We place A LOT of demands on our life partner. And I don't just mean people who have lists--like only dating people of a certain height, income, educational level, size, car, who like dogs, who are vegetarian, etc...etc.... We expect our life partners to be our soul mates, our best friends, our financial partners, our cheerleaders, our coaches, a parent to our children, a representative and literal union of our families, and a general public face to our personal commitment. That is asking A LOT. And we haven't even gotten to any lists or deal breakers or preferences. Which is why I think it's good to be as open minded as possible about your life partner.
For instance, I had a friend in college, a white Jewish man of the Jewish conservative persuasion who was very identified with Jewish culture and who only dated Jewish women (preferably women who were also conservative, although he was open to dating reform minded women as long as they were willing to keep kosher.)
"S" and I used to talk about interracial or in his case cross-religious dating--and while he wasn't against it for others, he didn't see it in his future--the cross-religious dating/marriage. His faith and his culture were very important parts of his life, and he wanted to have a life partner that reflected his religious and cultural beliefs.
Fast forward seven years. I ran into "S" randomly in an ice cream parlor in Boston during a time when I was no longer living there and when he was visiting friends. It turns out that "S" had gotten married and was living in Chicago. His wife? She is an African American woman and a Christian. They have an interracial, interfaith marriage and will raise the children with both faiths/cultures. Although I know that this is problematic for some, I have to admit that I was happy that "S" had found a woman he loved and that he was willing to revise some of his convictions based on that love.
Are we influenced by the dominant culture? Absolutely. Do we internalize racist beliefs? Yes. Should we work against these ingrained tendencies of wanting white privilege? Well, if you want to live and practice an anti-racist lifestyle, then sure. Can you help who you fall in love with? No and yes. You probably can't help who you are attracted to and who you fall in love with, but for some, the social pressure and stigma may be too great--or your personal politics and convictions may not allow you to take envision certain life partners.
There are interracial pairs that are more accepted than others in U.S. society. In general, white men dating women of color of almost any background (but certainly I'd rank Asian women at the top of that acceptable list) are going to find less censure than white women dating men of any race (and I'd put possibly black or Asian men at the top of the taboo list). And people of color dating one another across racial lines does not seem to engender as much scrutiny by larger society, but may find quite a bit of disapproval from within their ethnic communities. A lot of this has to do with media images, power, privilege, a history of women being used as pawns in a game of ownership and control of resources, overseas wars, and some other things too long to get into in this single post. And I haven't even gotten to queer unions and same-sex couples who cross various color and religious lines.
What I want to leave you with is a single and unremarkable observation: consenting adults should be free to love and partner with whomever they choose. We can question the motivations and the history and the ingrained assumptions and beliefs behind interracial unions in general. But telling people that they are sell-outs or bananas or Uncle Toms or coconuts (why is fruit always used for these racially denigrating descriptions?) just doesn't seem productive and doesn't get to the real issues about how people meet and decide to couple.
Finally, let me leave you with the voices of two people who speak from first-hand experience and first-person perspectives about interracial unions and mixed-race matters.
CVT, a regular commenter on this blog, decided that he wanted a forum for his own musings on race and other things, so he started Chop-tensils. And in an odd coincidence, we both ended up blogging about interracial relationships on July 1. Please head over to Chop-tensils--it's worth a read for CVT's insights and observations, and I know he'd love a lively discussion, especially on the interracial dating stuff he just posted.
For a fictional look at living in a mixed-race world, let me introduce you to Jason Sublette, a mixed-race fiction writer living in "the South." Jason has an excellent short story published in an on-line journal, Green Hills Literary Lantern called "Laws of Motion." Check it out--I suspect that Jason's voice will be one we will continue to hear about (and in larger forums) in years to come.
So I thought I'd return to this topic since this blog is called "Mixed Race America" and because I suspect that a few readers are interested in these topics.
What I wrote about on July 1 was the hostility that certain gendered/raced pairs encounter by members of a majority culture and members of their own ethnic communities. There's a lot to be said about the politics of interracial dating.
First thing I'll say is that it's complicated. To try to have an in-depth and honest conversation about interracial dating requires an ability to get beyond cliches of "Love sees no color" as well as charges of selling out the race or desiring white privilege through interracial relationships (that's for those people who are a member of a racial minority dating a member of the current racial majority).
Second, I think it's rare for people to make decisions of an intimate nature on pure politics. In other words, I know that people have preferences and are motivated by political factors. But the truth is, finding someone you truly connect with is difficult. We place A LOT of demands on our life partner. And I don't just mean people who have lists--like only dating people of a certain height, income, educational level, size, car, who like dogs, who are vegetarian, etc...etc.... We expect our life partners to be our soul mates, our best friends, our financial partners, our cheerleaders, our coaches, a parent to our children, a representative and literal union of our families, and a general public face to our personal commitment. That is asking A LOT. And we haven't even gotten to any lists or deal breakers or preferences. Which is why I think it's good to be as open minded as possible about your life partner.
For instance, I had a friend in college, a white Jewish man of the Jewish conservative persuasion who was very identified with Jewish culture and who only dated Jewish women (preferably women who were also conservative, although he was open to dating reform minded women as long as they were willing to keep kosher.)
"S" and I used to talk about interracial or in his case cross-religious dating--and while he wasn't against it for others, he didn't see it in his future--the cross-religious dating/marriage. His faith and his culture were very important parts of his life, and he wanted to have a life partner that reflected his religious and cultural beliefs.
Fast forward seven years. I ran into "S" randomly in an ice cream parlor in Boston during a time when I was no longer living there and when he was visiting friends. It turns out that "S" had gotten married and was living in Chicago. His wife? She is an African American woman and a Christian. They have an interracial, interfaith marriage and will raise the children with both faiths/cultures. Although I know that this is problematic for some, I have to admit that I was happy that "S" had found a woman he loved and that he was willing to revise some of his convictions based on that love.
Are we influenced by the dominant culture? Absolutely. Do we internalize racist beliefs? Yes. Should we work against these ingrained tendencies of wanting white privilege? Well, if you want to live and practice an anti-racist lifestyle, then sure. Can you help who you fall in love with? No and yes. You probably can't help who you are attracted to and who you fall in love with, but for some, the social pressure and stigma may be too great--or your personal politics and convictions may not allow you to take envision certain life partners.
There are interracial pairs that are more accepted than others in U.S. society. In general, white men dating women of color of almost any background (but certainly I'd rank Asian women at the top of that acceptable list) are going to find less censure than white women dating men of any race (and I'd put possibly black or Asian men at the top of the taboo list). And people of color dating one another across racial lines does not seem to engender as much scrutiny by larger society, but may find quite a bit of disapproval from within their ethnic communities. A lot of this has to do with media images, power, privilege, a history of women being used as pawns in a game of ownership and control of resources, overseas wars, and some other things too long to get into in this single post. And I haven't even gotten to queer unions and same-sex couples who cross various color and religious lines.
What I want to leave you with is a single and unremarkable observation: consenting adults should be free to love and partner with whomever they choose. We can question the motivations and the history and the ingrained assumptions and beliefs behind interracial unions in general. But telling people that they are sell-outs or bananas or Uncle Toms or coconuts (why is fruit always used for these racially denigrating descriptions?) just doesn't seem productive and doesn't get to the real issues about how people meet and decide to couple.
Finally, let me leave you with the voices of two people who speak from first-hand experience and first-person perspectives about interracial unions and mixed-race matters.
CVT, a regular commenter on this blog, decided that he wanted a forum for his own musings on race and other things, so he started Chop-tensils. And in an odd coincidence, we both ended up blogging about interracial relationships on July 1. Please head over to Chop-tensils--it's worth a read for CVT's insights and observations, and I know he'd love a lively discussion, especially on the interracial dating stuff he just posted.
For a fictional look at living in a mixed-race world, let me introduce you to Jason Sublette, a mixed-race fiction writer living in "the South." Jason has an excellent short story published in an on-line journal, Green Hills Literary Lantern called "Laws of Motion." Check it out--I suspect that Jason's voice will be one we will continue to hear about (and in larger forums) in years to come.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Mixed Race America--how does it begin?
I don't know if anyone has noticed, but I added this handy little widget on my blog that allows me to see how people arrived at this site. And as I suspected, most people get here by doing a google search--many of them typing in words and phrases related to mixed race people and subjects and/or inter-racial relationships.
[aside--one of the more disturbing combinations that I've found used a google search and the words "Michelle Obama looks like a monkey" and it deposited this person on my post "Now introducing: Michelle Obama" and I'd like to hope that this person learned something--namely how accomplished and poised and intelligent and beautiful Michelle is--because when I saw this google search I got ANGRY and felt a surge of RAGE that someone actually thought to type this combination of words into a google search--I mean, I know racism is alive and well but seeing it in google form just pisses me off to no end! And it reminded me of "The Land of the Not-So-Calm's" post about finding someone who found her site by typing "how do i return children i've adopted"--which is another google search phrase you never want to see]
So, since I know many of you non-regular readers may well expect, want, and wish to see a blog called "Mixed Race America" talk more directly about people who identify as "mixed-race" or "mixed-race" issues (beyond the everyday issues of race in America and the corollaries that go with it), let me start by talking about how we get to racial mixtures, namely inter-racial relationships.
[Second aside--I do research on race and mixed-race issues, and I've written about these topics elsewhere in this blog (and in my professional life) so I want to acknowledge that I'm not trying to reinforce the idea of pure "races" by talking about "mixed-race" because in many ways we are ALL part of a mixed-race America (or mixed-race world for those visitors outside the Americas). But because in the U.S. we are largely guided by the racial pentagram (white-black or Caucasian-African American- Asian American-American Indian or Native American-Hispanic (or my preference) Latino) and because anti-miscegenation (a pejorative term in our day and age) was a guiding force in American life, I am going to treat mixed-race as a real entity, in a sort've "common-sense" way. So while once upon a time a Japanese American and Filipino immigrant were seen to be in an inter-racial relationship (and while we may think of them as such today in certain circles) most likely this couple would be seen to be in an inter-ethnic relationship--as would an Irish American married to a Greek or a Jamaican American married to a person from Kenya.]
Although I don't like to get into many personal details on this blog, I will acknowledge that I've only dated one Chinese American man in my life. Which means that almost all of my dating habits have been inter-racial (and some inter-ethnic)--and many of them have been with white men.
I'm acutely aware of demographics and politics related to being an Asian American woman dating a white man. While I was an undergrad at Santa Barbara I received plenty of dirty looks and a few comments by Asian American men when I was seen walking with white guys (whether they were romantically linked to me or not). Another friend, who is Filipina, received the same kind of treatment by African American female peers when she and her African American boyfriend now husband (who is actually mixed-race himself: his mother is white-Jewish and his father is black) were seen walking across campus. And then there are the hard looks I've received here in "The South" when I've left the small circle of my university town--most recently it happened about 20 minutes from where I live at a Citgo gas station at midnight. Southern Man and I were returning from a party in a semi-rural area and we stopped at a gas station since prices were about a dime less than in town, and when I got out of the car, I swear that it felt like everyone was staring at us--not necessarily in a hostile way but in a way in which I felt on display--as if my boyfriend and I were a living and walking example of miscegenation--although there was a car with African American patrons, all other cars (and oddly enough it was a fairly happening spot at midnight) were white--and no cars appeared to have people of different races inside.
I understand that in terms of the Asian American men and African American women at my alma mater, the racial and gender pairing of my friend and myself was an affront to a sense of racial solidarity. Probing further, I'd also say that there is a fear, perhaps more on the part of the Asian American female-white male pairing that an attention to racism and an anti-racist perspective will be lost (since I think that may be what is motivating charges of "selling out your race"). For the patrons at the gas station, I wonder if it has to do with fear of change--that seeing an inter-racial couple is a signal that there is a sea change going on in terms of society and culture. Because the real fear is never the couple itself but the family they will create -- the mixed-race children that will come from the inter-racial couple--or even when thinking of adoption, the fact that the child, regardless of his/her race, will be raised by parents who look different from one another--who come from different cultures, different perspectives.
The truth is, stats for inter-racial couples and mixed-race people are still pretty small when looking at a national picture. I don't have the stats at my fingertips, but I think it's less than 10% of the population checked off more than one box on the 2000 census in terms of race/ethnicity. And I think inter-racial relationships make up about the same percentage (just under 10%). If anyone out there has hard numbers I'd be interested--they are buried in my research files somewhere, so hopefully I'll trip across them and post them soon.
Anyway, the more telling statistic is that every ten years, the number of children living in households where their parents are not of the same race has doubled. In 1970 it was 460,000, in 1980 it was 996,070, and in 1990 it was 1,937,496--and I'm sure it more than doubled by 2000. So what we do know is that people who self-identify as mixed-race and being in mixed-race families exponentially increases every 10 years. Which means mixed-race families and children and people -- those who are choosing a mixed-race identification -- will continue to grow as we get to the next census count in 2010.
[aside--one of the more disturbing combinations that I've found used a google search and the words "Michelle Obama looks like a monkey" and it deposited this person on my post "Now introducing: Michelle Obama" and I'd like to hope that this person learned something--namely how accomplished and poised and intelligent and beautiful Michelle is--because when I saw this google search I got ANGRY and felt a surge of RAGE that someone actually thought to type this combination of words into a google search--I mean, I know racism is alive and well but seeing it in google form just pisses me off to no end! And it reminded me of "The Land of the Not-So-Calm's" post about finding someone who found her site by typing "how do i return children i've adopted"--which is another google search phrase you never want to see]
So, since I know many of you non-regular readers may well expect, want, and wish to see a blog called "Mixed Race America" talk more directly about people who identify as "mixed-race" or "mixed-race" issues (beyond the everyday issues of race in America and the corollaries that go with it), let me start by talking about how we get to racial mixtures, namely inter-racial relationships.
[Second aside--I do research on race and mixed-race issues, and I've written about these topics elsewhere in this blog (and in my professional life) so I want to acknowledge that I'm not trying to reinforce the idea of pure "races" by talking about "mixed-race" because in many ways we are ALL part of a mixed-race America (or mixed-race world for those visitors outside the Americas). But because in the U.S. we are largely guided by the racial pentagram (white-black or Caucasian-African American- Asian American-American Indian or Native American-Hispanic (or my preference) Latino) and because anti-miscegenation (a pejorative term in our day and age) was a guiding force in American life, I am going to treat mixed-race as a real entity, in a sort've "common-sense" way. So while once upon a time a Japanese American and Filipino immigrant were seen to be in an inter-racial relationship (and while we may think of them as such today in certain circles) most likely this couple would be seen to be in an inter-ethnic relationship--as would an Irish American married to a Greek or a Jamaican American married to a person from Kenya.]
Although I don't like to get into many personal details on this blog, I will acknowledge that I've only dated one Chinese American man in my life. Which means that almost all of my dating habits have been inter-racial (and some inter-ethnic)--and many of them have been with white men.
I'm acutely aware of demographics and politics related to being an Asian American woman dating a white man. While I was an undergrad at Santa Barbara I received plenty of dirty looks and a few comments by Asian American men when I was seen walking with white guys (whether they were romantically linked to me or not). Another friend, who is Filipina, received the same kind of treatment by African American female peers when she and her African American boyfriend now husband (who is actually mixed-race himself: his mother is white-Jewish and his father is black) were seen walking across campus. And then there are the hard looks I've received here in "The South" when I've left the small circle of my university town--most recently it happened about 20 minutes from where I live at a Citgo gas station at midnight. Southern Man and I were returning from a party in a semi-rural area and we stopped at a gas station since prices were about a dime less than in town, and when I got out of the car, I swear that it felt like everyone was staring at us--not necessarily in a hostile way but in a way in which I felt on display--as if my boyfriend and I were a living and walking example of miscegenation--although there was a car with African American patrons, all other cars (and oddly enough it was a fairly happening spot at midnight) were white--and no cars appeared to have people of different races inside.
I understand that in terms of the Asian American men and African American women at my alma mater, the racial and gender pairing of my friend and myself was an affront to a sense of racial solidarity. Probing further, I'd also say that there is a fear, perhaps more on the part of the Asian American female-white male pairing that an attention to racism and an anti-racist perspective will be lost (since I think that may be what is motivating charges of "selling out your race"). For the patrons at the gas station, I wonder if it has to do with fear of change--that seeing an inter-racial couple is a signal that there is a sea change going on in terms of society and culture. Because the real fear is never the couple itself but the family they will create -- the mixed-race children that will come from the inter-racial couple--or even when thinking of adoption, the fact that the child, regardless of his/her race, will be raised by parents who look different from one another--who come from different cultures, different perspectives.
The truth is, stats for inter-racial couples and mixed-race people are still pretty small when looking at a national picture. I don't have the stats at my fingertips, but I think it's less than 10% of the population checked off more than one box on the 2000 census in terms of race/ethnicity. And I think inter-racial relationships make up about the same percentage (just under 10%). If anyone out there has hard numbers I'd be interested--they are buried in my research files somewhere, so hopefully I'll trip across them and post them soon.
Anyway, the more telling statistic is that every ten years, the number of children living in households where their parents are not of the same race has doubled. In 1970 it was 460,000, in 1980 it was 996,070, and in 1990 it was 1,937,496--and I'm sure it more than doubled by 2000. So what we do know is that people who self-identify as mixed-race and being in mixed-race families exponentially increases every 10 years. Which means mixed-race families and children and people -- those who are choosing a mixed-race identification -- will continue to grow as we get to the next census count in 2010.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Purity
I'm leaving for Toronto today for a cousin's wedding, and I'm really looking forward to the trip. I haven't been to Toronto in over 8 years. And because I'm headed to Toronto, I'm reminded about an incident that happened to me at a conference.
I had been talking about my Chinese Jamaican family (most of whom live in Toronto) and this woman (an older, white woman) turns to me and says:
HER: "I don't mean to offend you, but I'm wondering if you can answer a question."
ME: (bracing myself) "OK"
HER: "I recently returned from Toronto and noticed a lot of Asians there. And it's not that I have anything against miscegenation. But many of them were mixed. And I was just wondering, why can't they keep pure? They have such a lovely culture--why aren't they proud of who they are? Sometimes the mixture looks fine but other times it's so awkward. Why can't they keep to their purity."
ME: (mouth slightly agape, completely at a loss of what to say and fully aware of how careful I have to be because the woman sitting next to me is actually the wife of a colleague. And yet I think, this is my moment to speak truth to power, but then I wonder, is this an educational moment, and then I just feel dumbfounded and what runs through my head is, "REALLY???!!! You're actually saying this to ME???!!! THIS IS SO RACIST, AND I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU ARE SAYING THIS TO ME! PURITY??!! HITLER TALKED ABOUT PURITY???!!! What should I do? Tell you I'm going to get on this problem right away? That I'll be sure to issue a letter or proclamation to the Asian citizens of Toronto informing them that if they were attractive and could ensure attractive looking mixed-race progeny then it's OK to go ahead with their miscegenation project, but otherwise, stick to your race???!!! And miscegenation?! Who uses that word anymore?! That word has such a controversial connotation--rooted in a history of race baiting. Couldn't she at least have said *interracial*?")
ME: Uhhhh...Yeah....there are a lot of Asians in Toronto.
[the next speaker gets up to the podium to show a power point presentation, the lights go down, and I barely pay attention because I'm kicking myself the whole time about my lame response]
Anyway, maybe I'll look into that proclamation when I get to Canada. After all, we wouldn't want any awkward looking miscegenated Asian people running around Canada. After all, they're not pure.
I had been talking about my Chinese Jamaican family (most of whom live in Toronto) and this woman (an older, white woman) turns to me and says:
HER: "I don't mean to offend you, but I'm wondering if you can answer a question."
ME: (bracing myself) "OK"
HER: "I recently returned from Toronto and noticed a lot of Asians there. And it's not that I have anything against miscegenation. But many of them were mixed. And I was just wondering, why can't they keep pure? They have such a lovely culture--why aren't they proud of who they are? Sometimes the mixture looks fine but other times it's so awkward. Why can't they keep to their purity."
ME: (mouth slightly agape, completely at a loss of what to say and fully aware of how careful I have to be because the woman sitting next to me is actually the wife of a colleague. And yet I think, this is my moment to speak truth to power, but then I wonder, is this an educational moment, and then I just feel dumbfounded and what runs through my head is, "REALLY???!!! You're actually saying this to ME???!!! THIS IS SO RACIST, AND I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU ARE SAYING THIS TO ME! PURITY??!! HITLER TALKED ABOUT PURITY???!!! What should I do? Tell you I'm going to get on this problem right away? That I'll be sure to issue a letter or proclamation to the Asian citizens of Toronto informing them that if they were attractive and could ensure attractive looking mixed-race progeny then it's OK to go ahead with their miscegenation project, but otherwise, stick to your race???!!! And miscegenation?! Who uses that word anymore?! That word has such a controversial connotation--rooted in a history of race baiting. Couldn't she at least have said *interracial*?")
ME: Uhhhh...Yeah....there are a lot of Asians in Toronto.
[the next speaker gets up to the podium to show a power point presentation, the lights go down, and I barely pay attention because I'm kicking myself the whole time about my lame response]
Anyway, maybe I'll look into that proclamation when I get to Canada. After all, we wouldn't want any awkward looking miscegenated Asian people running around Canada. After all, they're not pure.
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