57 Comments
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Katherine Dee's avatar

Can't believe I forgot to talk about RCTA (race change to another).

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Giovanni's avatar

Let's not!

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Sean Sakamoto's avatar

How does this relate to passing? It seems similar in some way.

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Rob's avatar

What number only ticks up?

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Rob's avatar

Ah, got it

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Randy Hughes's avatar

You look like a Russian dissident …lol.

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Francis LaPierre's avatar

Love the hat- maybe you could add different hats for different topics

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Katherine Dee's avatar

Thank you!

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≠Cool2BCool's avatar

My experience with trans-racialism comes whenever I grow facial hair.

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Katherine Dee's avatar

LOL wdym?

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≠Cool2BCool's avatar

"Coo2bCool, you look like a suicide bomber with that beard"

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DeepLeftAnalysis🔸's avatar

2000s: white men desperately trying to be black (Eminem)

2020s: white women desperately trying to be Asian

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Katherine Dee's avatar

I'd say it's older than that!

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DeepLeftAnalysis🔸's avatar

al jolson? boston tea party? holy roman empire? how deep does the rabbit hole go??

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Jonathan Herz's avatar

“white women have a tendency to romanticize Asian identity in an unusual way”

Because Asian women stole their men.

This has the greatest impact on White women, since there are a lot more Asians than whites.

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Katherine Dee's avatar

I don't think they are a particular locus of racial animus for white women tbh

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Jonathan Herz's avatar

Sometimes it comes out more in weird acts of self-harm like in the case of Lisa Yo. White women, particularly teachers, sometimes get very triggered by mixed white-Asian kids.

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Bobby's avatar

I'm half Mexican and half German. My cultural experience isn't Mexican. I look vaguely European, and I would consider my cultural upbringing to be vaguely white ethnocentric. I am called wetto by so called pure Mexicans. Which is in of itself a misnomer. Becuase Mexicans are mixed European and Meso American. I watched MTV. I skated. I attended a American college. It feels weird to be 1 part of something and have no real defining characteristics. And to literally be an "other" to the same people you come from. Wirey brown, blonde, and red hair. White skin, but a mixed phenotype.

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Jonathan Herz's avatar

I thought the term was “Castizo” for someone who is half white and half hispanic

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Jonathan Herz's avatar

“To me—and this is an old DF take—there really isn’t a meaningful difference between the person who has, let’s say, one Mexican grandparent who didn’t grow up speaking Spanish or with any Mexican culture in their immediate environment, including and maybe especially their home, and somebody like Lisa Yo.”

I’m sorry this is a truly asinine take. Someone who is a 1/4 something or other who has some interest in that part of their ancestry is not at all like Lisa Yo, who has adopted an identity she has nothing to do with through plastic surgery and mental illness. I would certainly want my grandchildren to remember my contribution to their legacy even if the other 3/4 was something totally different.

There are many examples I could give however one that immediately comes to mind is how the state of Israel gives right of return to quarter Jews, who were known as Mischlings in the 2nd degree under the Nuremberg Rassengesetz during the third Reich. Hitler, Torquemada, and Lenin were all quarter Jews and this certainly had an impact on the careers of all three.

There are examples from other races as well however the quarter Jewish examples are the most famous.

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Katherine Dee's avatar

maybe 1/4th is a stretch or too hyperbolic, but in the US, you see people with extremely distant ancestry, who didn't grow up with it, claim it in a way that is frankly clownish. it is a type of performance, even minstrelsy.

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Jonathan Herz's avatar

I agree with you to some extent but to equate that with moving to the other side of the world and getting plastic surgery to dramatically alter your appearance is stretching matters to the breaking point.

Well what else are they supposed to claim? Americans are mixed to a great extent and it’s natural for them to ask themselves who they are and who they come from. Of course many Americans don’t even know who their fathers are so I guess 1/4 is a lot for people like that…

I wouldn’t really call 5-7 generations “extremely distant,” either. Only in the New World is this considered a long time. It’s not at all uncommon for many families in Europe and East Asia to be able to trace their lineages back double digit generations. America is the exception in the northern hemisphere and not the rule in this regard.

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Katherine Dee's avatar

well, for one, they can claim being american. i always strongly identified with being from florida. i don't say i'm NOT italian but when you get down to brass tacks, the culture i grew up with, immersed myself in, am most familiar with is not italian culture, but floridian. we should have more local pride.

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Jonathan Herz's avatar

Yes but inside America outcomes, behavior and life experiences are highly dependent on where the old country is whether one wants to admit it or not. I also think this kind of denial of the past is one of the reasons for the extremely high divorce rates in American society and the near impossibility of maintaining a normal family life there.

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Katherine Dee's avatar

Totally disagree

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Jonathan Herz's avatar

I’m not surprised

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Jonathan Herz's avatar

My reaction after reading this article was “believing in 21st century liberalism and American ideas about identity is a mental illness.”

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Katherine Dee's avatar

I am right

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Patrick Kho's avatar

“Some shift racial presentation for perceived social or economic advantages or cultural capital” made me think of Ariana grande

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Katherine Dee's avatar

Another transracial baddie I grew up with…

Maybe my hometown is cursed

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Patrick Kho's avatar

Katherine when I first followed you, I thought you were Chinese (“Dee” is a common Chinese last name in Southeast Asia)

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Katherine Dee's avatar

LOL

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ARX-Han's avatar

This is fucking insane.

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Katherine Dee's avatar

That is one interpretation

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Ryan K. Rigney's avatar

Look up Qwo-Li Driskill for a real scream along these lines

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Katherine Dee's avatar

woa

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Sunspot_Mike's avatar

Oh shit, I forgot about CV Vitolo-Hadad. Madtown represent!

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Katherine Dee's avatar

We went to high school together! She was mean! Lmao

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Sunspot_Mike's avatar

I can see it. She mean-girled some grad student out of a teaching assistant position because of his old tweets.

There's a study to be done in the fetishization of marginalized identities in affluent cities like Madison where even though almost everyone is as progressive as possible, it's still very white and still a significant economic racial divide. It manifests often as minorities being treated like "magical Negroes", which can get weird and makes for a strange social currency in perceived oppression. While the easiest way to leave the oppressor class is to assume a sexual/gender identity, sometimes people go all out with the trace ancestry instead (like if I tried to take a Birthright trip with my 2% Ashkenazi 23andme report.)

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NY Expat's avatar

When reading the final encounter between Deckard and the replicants in Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, in the abandoned apartment building, I recommend listening to the song Mongoloid by Devo

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Katherine Dee's avatar

One of my favorite bands

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