Jezebel 
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New York, 11:57 AM
Sun Dec 20
19 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/18/09
The end.
12/18/09
Of course race, gender are social constructs. Every non-biologically-based concept about human nature that we define to have [blank] social meaning is a social construct. But something being a social construct doesn't mean it's irrelevant. I'm so over people throwing around the phrase "social construct" like it's equivalent to "fictional" just because they're 'over' a certain social reality.
When people look at me, they see a black woman. Whether I identify as either black or a woman (or whether that's even what I "am" by the standards of the society I happen to be in at the time) are meaningless if I am being judged and treated according to the 'lookers' judgment of my race and gender. If the 'looker' possesses more social capital than I, I effectively am left with the consequences of that judgment. That's at the very heart of discrimination (i.e.- that thing no one's ever been able to combat with the phrase "social construct").
I'm not saying "We are what people think we are," it's imperative to have a solid self-identity. But it's foolish to think that basically telling people that their socially-based concepts about sex, gender are fiction, therefore you don't 'recognize' their biases.
12/19/09
The classification of race has very little to do with dismissing people's identifed ethnicity --or with saying their racial identity is irrelevant-- but everything to do with some arbitrary rule someone somewhere in time made up to create division amongst human beings. That's not dismissive: it's a fact.
12/19/09
I agree with your classification of "race," I disagree with what I think your classification of "social construct" is. When race, "the arbitrary rule someone somewhere in time made up to create division amongst human beings," was such an effective concept that it affects everyone hundreds of years after its inception, it should be treated as seriously as other really-bad ideas in history.
12/17/09
12/17/09
12/17/09
"Who are your people?"
"What country are you from?"
"What are you mixed with?"
"Are you [fill in the blank ethnicity]?"
I, personally, have never heard "What color are you?" Maybe it's a regional thing?
12/17/09
The thing is, I am very very Jewish, as are is everyone I am descended from. But other Jews still ask this question (usually even more rudely than anyone else, the racism in my community scares me). And then they seem shocked to realize that not every Jew has pure white Eastern European heritage.
12/17/09
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12/17/09
I thought he was South American. This is the first time I have ever heard her refer to her dad as black or African-American.
12/17/09
07/01/09
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07/01/09
That said, I don't care what color he wanted his skin to be or whether it was the result of disease, peels, bleach, whatever. HE still identified as a black artist. I read numerous interviews where he said as much, and despite what color his skin turned out to be, he was African American by birth. So I don't see how its an issue.
07/01/09
I'M NOT GONNA SPEND MY LIFE BEIN' A COLOR!!
07/01/09
I've seen people around town with patchy, almost giraffe-looking skin (completely not my intention to sound disrespectful for something I'm sure is so embarrassing for them), and I would imagine a skin-bleaching would be rife with problems and trials.
07/01/09
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07/01/09
Straight up proves he wasn't bleaching and just trying to even out his skin tone.
07/01/09
Others have said that he admitted bleaching his skin because of the vitiligo. More than that, I don't know.
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07/01/09
I don't think he was trying to un-black himself, I don't think it was about that. I think he wanted to become as physically distant from who he "really was" as he possibly could. I somehow doubt that it really was about becoming white.
07/01/09
07/01/09