Groping For Minority Status For Better Litigation Outcomes
About a Muslim man who lost his job and filed a discrimination suit, via CBSlocal, his attorney, trying to build a case for his being discriminated against, said:
He's African American because Tunisia is in Africa...
Sigh. Everybody grabs for the race card when it pays. Go to the story and look at his picture.
That guy is "African American" in the sense it's generally used like South African-born Charlize Theron is.
P.S. Via Wikipedia, the population in Tunisia is "97% Arab-Berber" and "3% others." Some Tunisian faces here.
The fellow is likely more of an Arabic lineage, as Berbers tend to be stockier, lighter hair and occasionally sporting blue eyes.
I R A Darth Aggie at March 21, 2014 6:30 AM
I always love that look when I see it. My bookkeeper, who is blonde, married a Japanese guy, and they have the most gorgeous kids: blondish with light eyes with an Asian shape.
Amy Alkon at March 21, 2014 6:42 AM
I don't get it, why play the race card at all, isn't religious discrimination already illegal?
NicoleK at March 21, 2014 7:17 AM
"I always love that look when I see it"
Me too because that is what I grew up in (my grandparents were mixed so when they mixed it created some very beautiful exotic looking women).
It is interesting how race differs by country. I've had black Africans think I was white but a white American would never think that.
The reason this is such an issue is because for most of our history we have the one drop rule. And now most people embrace it, where it's something to be proud of and they forget why it was created in the first place. And now it's not advantageous to whites anymore so they want to get rid of it. BUT people forget that white didn't include Eastern Europeans, Jews and Italians until recently. So either we will broaden our definition of white again or people will convert to the view of race that Latin Americans have.
Which is there is no concept of ancestor race for most Hispanics. Your status is based on whatever you look like, your mom could look black buy if you look white then that is what you are. Which by the way doesn't stop people from still linking their superiority to their "race."
Ppen at March 21, 2014 12:34 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/03/21/groping_for_min.html#comment-4412620">comment from PpenRight, Ppen. And I wonder if the Irish were included in that, too.
Amy Alkon at March 21, 2014 12:45 PM
I know I'm biased, but I think my kids are exceptionally beautiful. My heritage is 100% Chinese, and my husband is white. I mean, if you look at his skin in direct sunlight you might be blinded. My daughter has Asian features and fine, curly brown hair. I think it's so cute.
Sosij at March 21, 2014 3:44 PM
My parents are pure Gringo, but they were living in South America when I was born-- that makes me Hispanic, right?
jefe at March 21, 2014 5:06 PM
(jefe this is a general response comment, not a direct reply.)
Well if you actually explore history a little you find that much of Central and South America was invaded by the Spanish as much as the invasion of North America by the UK and the French.
So that is where the span comes into Hispanic. Cortez was just as brutal as some things that were done by the English. But the various South American tribes were integrated better than the way the United States handled them.
Jim P. at March 21, 2014 5:41 PM
I love looking at old racist cartoons where the Irish where drawn equivalently to blacks, with those ridiculous over exaggerated features. Basically the cartoons emphasized how similar the Irish where to blacks and that they were only one step above black people. But it's like nobody remembers that.
jefe South America has many people of pure English descent but because of method the US uses they can get minority status. You are Hispanic, even if you are white, because one parent was a native citizens of a Hispanic land. This reminds me of how the English used to write papers that any European not born on European land was biologically inferior.
JimP the Spanish where able to integrate people better because during colonial times they had these little charts that told people of their racial status. My mom calls me something from one of the charts, I can't remember what but it means something like I'm almost good enough to legally marry a Spaniard!
Ppen at March 21, 2014 8:10 PM
The Spanish were able to "integrate" the natives better because the English didn't want to integrate them - they just wanted the land, with the Indians hopefully going off to die somewhere out of sight. The Spanish wanted the land and they wanted the natives as serfs to till the land, but most of the English immigrants were too lowly to hope to become lords of the manor. Those English that did arrive with or somehow acquire the wealth to aspire to own plantations worked by other men soon stereotyped the native Americans as too proud and lazy to work out as slaves, so they sought a non-native workforce.
The land north of New York colony was generally unsuitable for a plantation system. Immigrant workers for hire and bondservants could provide the workforce for commercial and manufacturing concerns in the northern colonies. But in the south, there was much good farm land unclaimed (except by the Indians, who would either sell for a jug of booze and some trinkets or be murdered for their land), and it was obvious that a poor working man could become an independent subsistence farmer just by saving up to buy a few tools and walking west. Too often, they would do so before completing their contract, and in an era without photographs, fingerprints, or DNA tests, it was impractical to find any particular white runaway bondservant among a sea of poor whites. So the plantation owners came to depend on enslaving black Africans for their workforce; they could run away, but they couldn't hide in a land where almost all blacks belonged to someone.
The Spanish also imported African slaves, but they added these to a population of semi-enslaved natives instead of driving the natives out. And, while they may have kept track of fine racial distinctions, they considered religion, wealth, and some degree of Hidalgo descent to be more important than the color of one's face - anything else would have been rather embarassing to the many Hidalgos who tanned as dark as the native Americans. (Lighter skin _is_ an advantage socially in much of Latin America, but it's one of many factors, rather than the binary distinction between "white" and non-white that our racists espouse.) And there were never enough ladies from their homeland, so pretty soon you had wealthy and socially prominent families with more native and African ancestors than Spanish. Hispanics often work on an inverted version of the "one drop" theory; if they can trace their ancestry to one Spanish gentleman, the rest doesn't matter.
markm at March 28, 2014 11:50 AM
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