Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.
…The least proximate types of the human species are the Anglo-Saxon and the negro. Their original homes are in widely separated regions of the earth, and neither race can establish itself in the home of the other. They differ in form and size of cranium, in the colour and texture of the skin, in the character and colour of the hair, and in intelligence.
The negro seems seldom to develop in intelligence beyond childhood. Havelock Ellis says* :—” The child of many African races is scarcely if at all less intelligent than the European child ; but while the African as he grows up becomes stupid and obtuse, and his whole social life falls into a state of hide-bound routine, the European retains much of his childlike vivacity.” they are mated. The offspring of the Anglo-Saxon and the negro are fertile when bred inter se, but in a less degree than when coupled with the parent races. The fertility of mulattoes decreases with each succeeding generation, and it is said they frequently die out in the fourth. The same thing is said to occur when the mulattoes are bred to the white race, but when they are bred to the negro they are more fertile, and the perfect negro type is reached in a few generations.
Dr. J. C. Nott, who resided for many years in the southern portion of the United States, and consequently had many opportunities of studying the negroes and their mulatto offspring, puts forward the following propositions respecting the mulattoes, the offspring of the strictly white race—i.e., the Anglo-Saxon or Teuton—and the true negro* :—
“That mulattoes are the shortest-lived of any class of the human race.
That mulattoes are intermediate in intelligence between the blacks and whites.
That they are less capable of undergoing fatigue and hardship than either blacks or whites.
That the mulatto women are peculiarly delicate, and subject to a variety of chronic diseases. That they are bad breeders, bad nurses, liable to abortion, and that their children generally die young.
That when mulattoes intermarry they are less prolific than when crossed on the parent stocks.
That when a negro man married a white woman the offspring partook more largely of the negro type than when the reverse connection had effect.
That mulattoes, like negroes, although unacclimatized, enjoy extraordinary exemption from yellow fever when brought to Charles town, Savannah, Mobile, or New Orleans.”
Dr. Nott noticed that mulattoes the offspring of the races of Southern Europe and the negro were often long-lived and prolific.
Dr. Morton, President of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, classed species according to their disparity or affinity, in the following manner :— “Remote species of the same genus are those among which hybrids are never produced. Allied species produce inter se an infertile offspring. Proximate species produce with each other a fertile offspring.”
In an increasingly diverse country, White Americans are an emerging racial minority. #EmergingUS travelled to one of the Whitest states, Iowa, to ask Iowans what it means to be White in a changing America.
Hosted by Jose Antonio Vargas, the founder of #EmergingUS and the producer/director of the MTV special White People, this video is a first in a series that explores White identity in the #EmergingUS.
Q. What have you learned about race while working on this documentary?
A. That the conversation has just started. And a lot of the time it’s framed as black and white. Well, where do Latinos and Asians fit in that conversation? Where do biracial people fit into that conversation? Where do multiracial people fit into that conversation? Where do the Rachel Dolezals of the world, of this country, fit into that conversation?
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Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and immigration activist. His new documentary “White People,” which airs tonight on MTV, follows Mr. Vargas as he travels the country speaking to young people about issues of race, particularly what it means to be white and experience white privilege. Because, Mr. Vargas said, “You cannot have a conversation about race in this country and not include white people in it.”
The documentary is part of MTV’s Look Different campaign, which aims to erase hidden gender, racial and anti-LGBT bias and uses data from a 2014 MTV survey of 14- to 24-year-olds that found that people in this age group are more tolerant and diverse than previous generations but are uncomfortable talking about race and adhere to the ideal of color blindness.
Mr. Vargas spoke about the controversy surrounding the documentary, Donald Trump’s comments about immigration and Rachel Dolezal. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation:…
…Q. What is your definition of white privilege?
A. I think people get tripped up by the word “privilege.” I’m talking about systematic institutionalized differences. I had a lot of people writing me emails saying, I’m not privileged. For example, this weekend I was with Martin O’Malley in front of progressive liberal activists. Responding to the “Black Lives Matter” protest at the conference, he said: “Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter.” And the audience, which was diverse, gasped. They actually booed him. Because institutionally, if you look at incarceration rates, if you look at the criminal justice system, black people are at a disadvantage. So the moment he said that, he took it back and apologized. And some people took offense to that. Why did Martin O’Malley have to apologize for saying white lives matter? And this woman on Twitter was genuinely hurt; her tweet to me was, “My white life matters.” And I tweeted back at her and I was like, “Of course it does.” Of course it does, but your life mattering has been a given…
…Q. What have you learned about race while working on this documentary?
A. That the conversation has just started. And a lot of the time it’s framed as black and white. Well, where do Latinos and Asians fit in that conversation? Where do biracial people fit into that conversation? Where do multiracial people fit into that conversation? Where do the Rachel Dolezals of the world, of this country, fit into that conversation?
Q. What do you think about Rachel Dolezal?
A. For me, that’s an example of what white privilege is. She can pass. There are many black people who can say that they are white as much as they can but who will never look physically white…