Race of the Future

The Race of the Future theory/idea states that due to the process of miscegenation, the mixing of different races, especially in marriage, cohabitation, or sexual relations, all the races are blending to become one single new race in the future.

Contents

History

Count Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi distinctly advocated race mixing in his 1925 Practical Idealism:[1]

"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."

The same scenario had been envisaged, with rather less enthusiasm, by Madison Grant in his 1916 The Passing of the Great Race, calling for an eugenics program to prevent this development, and in a similar ideological context in Lothrop Stoddard's The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy in 1920.

Gottfried de Purucker was an author and theosophist. When asked about intermarriage in 1930, he said "In answering your question very briefly, I can say simply this, that the time has not come when I would willingly suggest intermarriage; but I am in honesty bound to qualify that by saying that 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."[2]

The word miscegenation was used in an anonymous propaganda pamphlet printed in New York City in late 1863, 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 as mulattos, 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).[3] 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. Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Alaska, Hawaii, and the federal District of Columbia did not pass anti-miscegenation laws. In 1883, the constitutionality of anti-miscegenation laws was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 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. In 1967, the remaining anti-miscegenation laws in 16 states were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia.

Contemporary developments

In the United States, the proportion of Multiracial American children is growing. Interracial partnerships are rising, as are transracial adoptions. In 1990, about 14% of 18-19 year-olds, 12% of 20-21 year-olds, and 7% of 34-35 year-olds were involved in interracial relationships (Joyner and Kao, 2005).[4]

Roughly 10 years later, 20% of 18-19 year-olds and 16% of 24-25 year-olds were in an interracial relationship.

See also

References

  1. ^ Praktischer Idealismus, Wien/Leipzig 1925, pages 20, 23, 50
  2. ^ "KTMG Papers: Thirteen". The Dialogues of G. de Purucker. Theosophical University Press. http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/dialogue/dial13.htm. Retrieved 2008-07-15. 
  3. ^ Pascoe, Peggy. "Why the Ugly Rhetoric Against Gay Marriage Is Familiar to this Historian of Miscegenation". History News Network (George Mason University). http://hnn.us/articles/4708.html. Retrieved 2008-07-15. 
  4. ^ Lang, Susan S. (2005-11-02). "Interracial relationships are on the increase in U.S., but decline with age, Cornell study finds". Chronicle Online (Cornell University). http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov05/interracial.couples.ssl.html. Retrieved 2008-07-15.