The Atlantic - Latest Comments in A Beige Future

Re: A Beige Future

RHoover — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 21:59:46 -0000

I believe reading Walter White's autobiography will cure anyone infatuated with the "Beige Theory." I believe Sinclair Lewis wrote a novel partially based on Walter White's life called Kingsblood Royal.

Re: A Beige Future

RHoover — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 21:55:20 -0000

I was just reading Walter White's autobiography. Whew! This should be required reading. It blows the "Beige Theory" out of the water

Re: A Beige Future

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:19:36 -0000

Don't know if this is too late, but basically, yes. You have it right.

Re: A Beige Future

Star Wars Nut — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:37:39 -0000

Forgive my typo. I meant "reflect our biology and naturally tribal instincts."

Re: A Beige Future

ajw93 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:28:35 -0000

That's why I always say, "there's no such thing as a healthy tan," and get pissed off when freckled people say, "Oh one day they'll all meld together and I'll have a nice tan."

It took a long time and a getting over a LOT of teasing for me to find peace with my white-as-white-can-be, yet still freckly, skin tone and red hair. And I have it easy in the scheme of things.

Meanwhile....mmmmm....Shemar Moore....

Re: A Beige Future

deva — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:02:41 -0000

I'm not sure what difference it makes if they're bi-racial or not, if they satisfy the self-loathing aesthetic they are "mixed." The point is the aesthetic is there to value those who have a phenotype that is more European above those who have phenotypes that are less European. The very notion that bi-racial=attractive is a precisely the root of the colorstruck pathos.

Also, I understand this is a thought experiment, but there is very little evidence that there will ever be beige future. Not only are racial out-marriage rates very low, but bi-racial people are no more likely to procreate with each other than anyone else and the children of bi-racial people are not, generally speaking, "beige." They take on the dominant phenotypical characteristics of whatever predominates in their bloodline. And certainly the grandchildren of the bi-racial are not obscurely or indeterminately multi-racial any longer. I mean, Michelle Obama's grandfather was bi-racial. She is in no way beige. The president's daughters have white grandparents and their father is bi-racial, if they reproduce with African American men, this will have no bearing whatsoever on the racial categorization of their children. Same difference if a bi-racial person marries a white person, and their children marry white, etc. This is similarly true in the case of Asian out-marriage, or any other kind.

Do these facts make a mockery of our racial categorization system? Absolutely. But it points to the fact that the "beige future" is already here. It just ends up being black, white, Asian, etc. again in a generation or so.

A futuristic beige-ing would require a level of inter-mixing that simply has not nearly obtained in America. We're just not that integrated. Interracial couples, depending somewhat on class, are likely to be in certain kinds of social circumstances and their children are likely to be immersed in an environment where one racial culture or identity predominates and that's the rubric they'll use to arrange their lives, including the intimate and procreative parts.

Re: A Beige Future

melben3 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:58:04 -0000

Ursula K. LeGuin, 1971 -- "The Lathe of Heaven" -- As part of this story, she postulated a world in which all humans were, in fact, beige. This was a condition deliberately imposed in the course of the story in order to eliminate racism. I do not recall the details, but I believe that it was less than an unqualified success. In any case, you might find it interesting reading. She is, in my opinion, a quality author.

Re: A Beige Future

Jennifer D. — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:59:06 -0000

"sun-kissed golden brown."

Love it.

Re: A Beige Future

Star Wars Nut — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:35:10 -0000

I agree with Ta-Nehisi's assertion that even if modern categories of race were to be abolished, we as human beings would still find ways to discriminate and exploit other peoples. Though I disagree with the assertions of many racialists that categories such as "white" and "black" reflect our biological and naturally tribal, I do believe that as humans we evolved with an in-group vs. out-group mentality. This type of thinking not only manifests itself in racial matters, but other aspects of life as well. As you can see from my username, I am a major fan of Star Wars, whereas other people categorize themselves as "trekkies" or "trekkers" (don't know what they exactly call themselves these days). As a fan of the San Francisco Giants, I despise the Oakland A's and L.A Dodgers. These examples may seem very trivial compared to the painful and controversial issue of race, but they reflect our tribal mentality. While "whiteness" and "blackness" are mainly social constructs, once society has determined the groups, our tribal mentality causes us to embrace those categories. Also, Ta-Nehisi, I recall reading one of your earlier posts where you claimed that the goal of black freedom fighters was never to force white people to deconstruct their racial whiteness, but rather to free themselves and their people. You concluded by saying that your interest in anti-racism was fading, but your interest in black people remained essential. In "A Deeper Black," you mention that Obama's blackness "rejects an opportunistic ignorance of racism, but also understands that esoteric ramblings about white-skin privilege will not do anything to move the discussion further." Based on my readings of your articles and posts, it is my understanding that you are more interested in substantial policy changes that will help black people rather than deconstructing white identity and privilege, which is what anti-racists such as Tim Wise and Noel Ignatiev seek to accomplish. I think this is the main reason why you are skeptical about the whole notion that the a "beige" society will eliminate all of our problems. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Re: A Beige Future

herebutforfortune — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:25:06 -0000

While the point is well-taken that Jews, Catholics and Irish endured discrimination and worse as late as a half century ago, it's not true they were ever considered not white. This is no mere quibble but a fact in support of Ta-Nehisi's astute thesis that a desire to secure class privilege drives discrimination not skin tone.

Southerners never barred Catholics and Jews from whites-only privileges. That the Protestants knew they lived in the South is shamefully clear from KKK pamphlets and the laws that once barred nonChristians from holding public office. Restricted deeds in the South have never only said "whites only". They've also said "no Jews". The false notion that WASPs ever considered Irish or Catholics, per se, non-white, when the former are indigenous to the British Isles and the latter preceded Protestants there by a thousand years is mind-boggling.

Re: A Beige Future

boxofrox — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 07:28:28 -0000

It's all narcissism...... and tedious..... and small. We are spirit creatures. That is where you will find black and white distinctions of value. Even if some are seemingly resolved to grey.

Re: A Beige Future

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:04:33 -0000

Did you read this post and the comments, or did you just scroll down? Did you not see the numerous examples raised of ethnic hatred expressed by people of the same color? You don't "choose" your ethnicity. "Tutsi" isn't a belief.

I think the reason people have trouble dealing with the future multiracial world is their discomfort with how that would screw with the "one narrative" that is assigned a race/culture/ethnicity, when already, we have all failed in our own ways to fit into those boxes. Yet we cling to the narrative, whose time is past.

You may "think" that, but your not actually addressing what anyone in this thread has said. Your just confronting your own presumptions and strawmen.

Re: A Beige Future

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:01:37 -0000

This strikes me as a really dishonest reading of this thread. Numerous incidents of ethnic hatred have been listed, all of them based on things that are beyond the control of the victims. That you think that people who "look alike" will only hate each other on haircuts shows that you haven't really read the comments in this thread.

You're not really interested in dialogue--if you were you'd think about, and address, some of the other examples in this thread, wherein ethnic hatred was not based on skin color. You're interested in turning your own personal choices into something they aren't. In that effort you're straw-manning and addressing hatred based on "haircuts," instead of addressing the much more complicated examples raised up thread.

Re: A Beige Future

msbadger — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:38:24 -0000

Hi all, newcomer here. Thanks for bringing up the Jewish/Arab situation. To my knowledge, this is the oldest known prejudice/warfare situation (between actual COUSINS, if the bible is to be believed)and as you say, only the European-mix Jews look all that different from the classic Arab type. I've always observed that poeple can find anything and everything to discriminate between themselves and the "other." I feel blessed to be living in a time when we're at least making progress. And I feel blessed to have a beautiful mixed-race grandson. I'm glad I discovered this thread. We're all mutts anyway, out of Africa!

Re: A Beige Future

tinisoli — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:40:10 -0000

Sure, folks will find another way to discriminate. Let them. Better be hated for your haircut or beliefs than for your gender or skin color. Is one worse than the other? Yes. Undeniably so. Let's not equivocate in the future tense.

Bingo.

To discriminate and judge is part of being a sentient animal. We have to do it just to make our way out the door and down to the corner store. Certain kinds of judgments are legit and have merit, but others are grotesque and the epitome of unfairness. If discrimination in the year 2100 is about haircuts, clothing, politics, and language, but it's no longer about skin color, nationality, sexual orientation, or gender, then the species will have made progress. Whether that progress is deliberate or the cumulative process of countless individuals practicing different mating habits than their ancestors doesn't matter much to me, though there's an obvious nobility to the idea of humanity consciously triumphing over racism.

Re: A Beige Future

laura — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:55:22 -0000

I grew up in a Midwestern college town of about fifty thousand people, nearly all white. There were so few blacks that I could almost list them by name.

Two black kids in my high school.

A black mayor.

The members of the football and basketball teams of the U.

The foreign students from various places in Africa, mostly Nigeria.

The father and mother of the two black kids, both professionals affliated with the university.

About these folks I believe the following generalizations are true: the altheletes experienced a lot of hostility from the community and the police. The mayor was popular and respected. The two black professionals, in spite of thheir education and monwy, could not get bank financing to buy a house and rented on the wrong side of the tracks. The African students did not experiennce hostily from the police or commmunity as soon as they revealed their status as not Americans ( Africans being different in the white public imagination that Africann Americans). The two black kids I knew from school did their best to be accepted: super neatly dressed, excellent students, strived for leaderswhip positions at school, went to college, became evenntually bitter angry adults.

This was all back in the seventies. I don't know how things are now.

I'm not sure skin color had much to do with any of this. I think that a lot of white people didn't have racist attitudes toward bladck people if those people seemed distant and non threatening but did toward real black people they actually knew. So they could vote for a black mayor but didn't want a black neighbor, for example. Africanns weren't "real" blacks. Some of it had to do with behavior. The student athletes tended to be very big men and mostly came from Chicago with big city manners. Iowans tend to be reserved and polite. There was a real cultural conflicted between the big, loud young men from the city and the quiet, reserved twonsfolks, a clash of manners that stirred up all the scarey stereoptypes of scarey black men.

Anyway I agree that, even if we all were the same skin tone, people would still find ways to divde themsleves into tribes and fear the Other. We are the descendents of pack hunting territorial omnivores, after all.

Re: A Beige Future

Caleb Das — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:28:26 -0000

Beige is a color with very boring connotations. I think it's deliberate use is meant to perpetuate the idea that the coming multiracial reality will be one of blandness, when that's clearly not what reality is, or will be.

I think the reason people have trouble dealing with the future multiracial world is their discomfort with how that would screw with the "one narrative" that is assigned a race/culture/ethnicity, when already, we have all failed in our own ways to fit into those boxes. Yet we cling to the narrative, whose time is past.

Re: A Beige Future

Carrington — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:03:04 -0000

Absolutely... can we adopt some other term besides beige (and besides something obviously marketstudyfocuagroupedtodeath, vis: "sun-kissed golden brown."

Re: A Beige Future

Carrington — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:59:11 -0000

At college there was a popular mythology surrounding 'beige foam.' The SAGA food service (now a Marriott subsidiary) was rumored to pipe this foam to all of its food service locations, where it would be shaped and molded into the various dishes on student plates -- green beans, jello, mystery meat, etc.

It may well be that this beige foam has been adopted as a raw material for certain major fast food chains as well.

As to an ethnic identification, beige has some lasting and not-too pleasant associations for me... I would hope that we can find some less-generic end-state.

Re: A Beige Future

Hugo Pottisch — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:37:28 -0000

Sorry some typos: "it united each on to the rest" and "what was important in a man were recisely the qualities he shared with all mankind".

Re: A Beige Future

Hugo Pottisch — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:34:14 -0000

Edith Hamilton once wrote in her introductory text on the Greeks:

Character is a Greek word, but it did not mean to the Greeks what it means to u. To them it stood first for the mark stamped upon the coin, and then for the impress of this that quality upon a man, as Euripides speaks of the stamp-character-of valor upon Hercules, man the coin, valor the mark imprinted on him. To us a man's character is that which is peculiarly his own; it distinguishes each one from the rest. To the Greeks it was a man's share in qualities all men partake of; it united each one of the rest. We are interested in people's special characteristics, the things in this or that person which are different from the general. The Greeks, on the contrary, thought what as important in a men were precisely the qualities he shared with all mankind. This distinction is a vital one.

Today - we know much more about how the animal brain works. The brain would be overloaded if it concentrated on all our many similarities. We all have the same feelings, a nose, two eyes, some from of hair, we all have skin etc. It is easier to spot the few differences. It is hence more difficult (and less intellectually lazy) to see and understand the similarities. Nowhere is this more obvious than when humans distinguish themselves from animals. It took ages for our society to understand evolution and what Darwin meant by "humans are only different in degree but not type compared to other animals".

To me, hence - black and white and brown are states of mind and not color. If you are able to see the similarities - you would feel silly to do accounting of the differences. But it requires empathy and consideration. That is also why Gandhi argued that he was vegetarian in order to work at the root of all human problems. Is that why Obama hopes that the US is build on Gandhi's foundation?

Re: A Beige Future

drumwolf — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:10:24 -0000

Many posters have already pointed out that a narrowing of racial differences isn't going to change people's natural tendencies to find excuses to be discriminatory or bigoted towards others who are different from them. But I'll add yet another story in there to prove their point.

Some of you have heard of Thomas J. Leyden, a former neo-Nazi skinhead who renounced his white supremacist beliefs and now works with the ADL. He told a story about how he was at the Aryan Nations compound one time, and just for the hell of it, he asked some colleagues next to him, "You know, let's say we win the race war. What do we do next?" And one guy answered semi-jokingly, "We'll start going after people based on hair color." Leyden was convinced that there was some element of truth to it.

You could turn the entire human population of this planet into a single racially homogenous mass, and while you're at it, give them the same culture and language. People will find some excuse to become tribal and discriminatory.

Re: A Beige Future

tinisoli — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:05:06 -0000

"so how will the future be entirely beige? how does being in the beige set mean you've overcome racism?"

I get it. It's a chicken-or-the-egg thing: We won't get to beige unless we become race-blind enough to start mixing those genes. To a great extent, racism will have to have been overcome in order for interracial mating to become so prevalent that beige becomes common or normal. And then the beige norm will make any return of racism impossible. I guess I just think that we're definitely headed in that direction, whereas you and others may not. Fair enough.

Re: A Beige Future

adamnvillani — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:38:52 -0000

A white person with a nice tan is looked at as being healthier and more appealing.

Besides melanoma, the problem with this is that white people who get tanned a lot (whether via tanning beds, going to the beach, or just working outside) tend to visibly age a lot quicker. Lots of tans when young leads to leathery, wrinkled skin way before your time.

Re: A Beige Future

adamnvillani — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:36:02 -0000

If I had a vote, all women would look like Lauryn Hill or Marion Jones or Gabrille Union. (j/k)

Of course, they probably all have some European ancestry mixed in with the African.