Race of the Future

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1993 Time Magazine cover which shows a computer-generated face of the hypothetical future multi-ethnic race of the United States
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1993 Time Magazine cover which shows a computer-generated face of the hypothetical future multi-ethnic race of the United States

The Race of the Future theory/idea states that due to the process of miscegenation, the mixing of different ethnicities or races, especially in marriage, cohabitation, or sexual relations, all the races are blending to become one race in the future. The idea was stated by Gottfried de Purucker, an author and theosophist. When asked about intermarriage in 1930, he warned against it saying "the race of the future will be a composite, composed of the many different races on earth today. Let us also remember that all men are ultimately of one blood." [1]Richard Nikolaus Graf Coudenhove-Kalergi was an Austrian politician and geopolitician. He obtained his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vienna and worked as journalist and editor of the journal "Paneuropa". Coudenhove-Kalergi held some controversial, less known, opinions about race mixing and the role of the Jews. In his book, Praktischer Idealismus, he wrote: "The man of the future will be of mixed race. Today's races and classes will gradually disappear owing to the vanishing of space, time, and prejudice. The Eurasian-Negroid race of the future, similar in its appearance to the Ancient Egyptians, will replace the diversity of peoples with a diversity of individuals."

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[edit] In the United States

[edit] History

The word miscegenation was used in an anonymous propaganda pamphlet printed in New York City in late 1864, entitled Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro. The pamphlet purported to be in favor of interbreeding of whites and blacks until the races were indistinguishably mixed, claiming that this was the goal of the United States Republican Party. The real authors were David Goodman Croly, managing editor of the New York World, a Democratic Party paper, and George Wakeman, a World reporter. The pamphlet soon was exposed as an attempt to discredit the Republicans, the Lincoln administration, and the abolitionist movement by exploiting the fears and racial biases common among whites. Nonetheless, this pamphlet and variations on it were reprinted widely in communities on both sides of the American Civil War by opponents of Republicans.

The British colony of Maryland was the first to pass an anti-miscegenation law (1664).[2] In the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century, many American states passed anti-miscegenation laws, often based on controversial interpretations of the Bible, particularly the story of Phinehas. Typically a felony, these laws prohibited the solemnization of weddings between persons of different races and prohibited the officiating of such ceremonies. Sometimes the individuals attempting to marry would not be held guilty of miscegenation itself, but felony charges of adultery or fornication would be brought against them instead; Vermont was the only state to never introduce such legislation. In a fairly unique case, the Massachusetts legislature repealed its anti-miscegenation law in 1843.[3] This case, however, did little to halt anti-miscegenation sentiments in the rest of the country. Indeed, the constitutionality of anti-miscegenation laws was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1883 case Pace v. Alabama.

In 1948, the California Supreme Court in Perez v. Sharp effectively repealed the California anti-miscegenation statutes, thereby making California the first state in the twentieth century to do so. It would be nearly two decades more before these laws were struck down nationwide. In 1965, Virginia trial court Judge Leon Bazile sentenced to jail an interethnic couple who had married in Washington, D.C., writing:

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.[4]

[edit] Today

The proportion of multiracial children in the United States is growing rapidly. Interracial partnerships are rising, as are transracial adoptions. In 1990, about 14% of 18- to 19-year-olds, 12% of 20- to 21-year-olds and 7% of 34- to 35-year-olds were involved in interracial relationships (Joyner and Kao, 2005) [5].

[edit] Criticism

The theory assumes that eugenic races will not be created.

Critics say that it will damage "America's core" or all of the different opinions on what is supposed to be the one dream or looking for a better life. [6]

[edit] Multiracial celebrities

[edit] Tiger Woods

Woods's father, Earl Woods, was a Vietnam War veteran and a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, of mixed black (50 percent), Chinese (25 percent) and Native American (25 percent) ancestry.

Woods' mother, Kultida Woods, is originally from Thailand, and is of mixed Thai (50 percent), Chinese (25 percent), and Dutch (25 percent) ancestry. This makes Woods himself one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter Thai, one-quarter black, one-eighth Native American, and one-eighth Dutch. [7]

Barack Obama's father was born in Kenya and his mother was born in Kansas.
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Barack Obama's father was born in Kenya and his mother was born in Kansas.

[edit] Barack Obama

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama Sr. of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya, and Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas. In his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, Obama describes a nearly race-blind early childhood. He writes: "That my father looked nothing like the people around me...that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk...barely registered in my mind."[8]

[edit] Rob Schneider

Rob Schneider is of mixed European and Asian decent. His father, Marvin Schneider, is a Jewish American real estate broker and his mother, Pilar Monroe, a former kindergarten teacher, and former President of the local School Board is a Filipino American.

[edit] Popular Culture

  • The theory has also been popularized by Carlos Mencia on his show Mind of Mencia. In episode 2.05, Mencia hits the streets to find out what the race of the future would look like.
  • In some parts of the world, the recessive charactaristics of Blonde hair and blue eyes have been regarded in popular culture as signs of that an individual is of mixed race but in some cultures (notably that of Nazi Germany) they have been seen as a sign of Racial Purity
  • The South Park episode Goobacks features people from the future that visit the past in search of work. In that future the entire planet is populated with the race of the future, being the only race in existence. South Park goes even further in this multiraciality: next to their race being a mix of all the races we know today, the language they speak is a mix of all the current languages.
  • Disappearing blonde gene was a hoax that started circulating in the media in 2002. According to this hoax, the WHO (or other experts) published a report that the gene responsible for blond hair is about to be extinct. WHO has issued a formal statement that it knows of no such report.[9]

[edit] See also


[edit] References