{"id":38843,"date":"2014-12-14T01:40:40","date_gmt":"2014-12-14T01:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=38843"},"modified":"2014-12-14T01:40:40","modified_gmt":"2014-12-14T01:40:40","slug":"race-a-political-weapon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=38843","title":{"rendered":"\u201cRace\u201d: a Political Weapon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cRace\u201d: a Political Weapon<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Counterpunch: Tells the Facts and Names the Names<\/a>
\n2014-12-03<\/p>\n

Luciana Bohne<\/strong><\/a>, Professor
\nEdinboro University, Edinboro, Pennsylvania<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe racial categories included in the census questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014US Census<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to a widely circulated statistic, the police kill a young black man every twenty-eight hours in America. Without doubt, the police have a problem with race. Moreover, the justice system appears to have a problem, too, as proven by the Grand Jury\u2019s failed indictment of Darren Wilson<\/a> in the killing this summer of young Michael Brown<\/a> in Ferguson, Missouri<\/a>. The failed indictment does not mean that Wilson is innocent; only that he will not be brought to trial. This is a terrible perversion of the path to justice. It suggests deliberate prevention of trial on the nearly 100% certainty that Wilson would be found guilty if tried. I am disturbed, however, by the well-intentioned flagellants among the white, non-racist community virtually calling for \u201cAmerica\u2019s\u201d white male blood, metaphorically speaking. I am disturbed because this is the wrong response to the judicial outrage in Ferguson. We should be calling for ruling-class blood, not dividing ourselves into blacks and whites. Isn\u2019t this division a benefit that our divide-and-rule oppressors hardly deserve? Let us not play with the cards in their deck.<\/p>\n

To begin with, is \u201cAmerica\u201d racist? Real, existing Americans voted for a black candidate for president, one, moreover, who ticked off only the \u201cAfrican American\u201d category on race in the US Census of 2010<\/a>. In choosing the less privileged racial group than white, Obama<\/a> adhered to the principle of \u201chypo descent,\u201d which the US has traditionally used to determine the race of a child born of a mixed-race union. We have a black political class in the Congress; a black Supreme Court justice<\/a>; two blacks have been secretary of state (one a woman). We have not one institution in which blacks don\u2019t figure more or less prominently. Mixed marriages have been legal since 1967. In 2008, about 14% of all first marriages were mixed race; 9% of whites, 16% of blacks, 26% of Hispanics, and 31% of Asians were interracially married…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cRace\u201d: a Political Weapon Counterpunch: Tells the Facts and Names the Names 2014-12-03 Luciana Bohne, Professor Edinboro University, Edinboro, Pennsylvania \u201cThe racial categories included in the census questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically.\u201d \u2014US Census According to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,1467,8,26,394,20],"tags":[5347,18740,18514,17765,18739,17766,773],"class_list":["post-38843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-law","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-socialscience","category-usa","tag-counterpunch","tag-counterpunch-tells-the-facts-and-names-the-names","tag-darren-wilson","tag-ferguson","tag-luciana-bohne","tag-michael-brown","tag-missouri"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}