Steve James wrote:Looking at my Chinese wife I cannot deny the fact that there's something strangely different about the shape of her eyes or the color of her skin compared to me...
Yeah, she looks different. But, what race are your kids? What race will their kids be if they marry people who don't look like them? Or, do you think that they'll be "mixed-race"?
Of course, I can see that people look different. But, that's meaningless. Races weren't created; they were invented by people who wanted to explain why they're superior. We all have a common ancestor. Just like your kids, and their kids, and my kids. Hey, try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxgS9RKwKbU
Maybe instead of "race," we humans should divvy up our populace by "breed" -- just as we do with dogs, horses, chickens and all other domestic critters. Makes sense, doesn't it? The creation of a breed is the result of intentional trait/gene selection... a benign sort of eugenics we perform on non-human animals. The various physical-external traits we consider to be aspects of "race," are the result of breeding and inbreeding within isolated human populations, so that certain traits became prevalent (such as "shovel-shaped" incisors and epicanthic folds in Asians, or "peppercorn" hair texture in Australoid people). It's Nature's way of creating breeds.
Just think: We could come up with all of the tschotchkes that pet oweners snarf up when they want to show their pride of ownership: Bumper stickers with those "I *heart* my *human breed head" picto-word-grams and tote bags with silhouette profiles printed on 'em. And then it will be sooo easy to come up with the right term for ourselves when we're the product of mixed-breeding: Heinz 57 comes to mind.
Me? I'm a mixed breed of Middle-Eastern Hummus Nosher and Eastern-Euro Klezmer Fiddler, with a smidgeon of Slavic Peasant Roll-in-the-Hay.
What breed(s) are you? Do you have a bumper sticker and tote bag?