Michael Jackson

Wow, I’ve been reading comments for a lot of celebrities on this site for a few weeks or so, quietly spectating, and passively giving a thumbs-up here or a thumbs-down there. But, now I feel it’s time to speak my own piece on this whole race issue…Race is a social construction formed by humans to seperate people for social and political reasons, i.e., creating a superior vs. inferior social hierarchy for the benefit of one group and the expense of the “other” group. Nationality simply refers to what part of the world we are from. I can be a Black British woman from the UK if I happen to have majority “Black” ancestry and also live in the UK. A White man can be a White South African if he has majority European blood but happens to live in South Africa. We are usually categorized within a race based on the most salient phenotypical traits we express along with our direct ancestry…Ok…I’m pretty sure that each and every person, especially in a place with a diverse populace such as America, has ancestors who have come from different parts of the world. However, majority of ancestors, if not almost all of them, probably represented more of a specific “race” over others. I am a Black woman who was born in and resides in America, so I’m Black or African-American or whatever other label society has put on me. This means that MAJORITY of my genetic lineage passed from both parents is majority, but not solely, African if I were to trace my lineage of ancestors as far back as possible. Race CANNOT put us in a box, however. Just cuz I’m categorized as a Black American doesn’t mean that I’ve never had a White or Asian or Native American or Hispanic ancestor. I have medium-brown skin, jet black curly thick long hair, full lips, a semi long-wide nose, dimples, and tight eyes. Looking at me would probably give you the impression that I’m Black with some close Native-American ancestry. The other hints of ancestry are simply distantly obscured. It’s almost impossible to pinpoint EVERY single race or ethnicity you or any celebrity is made of, in most cases where ancestors were displaced during slavery and trading and broken families. Now, some White ppl may not wanna read this, but they most likely don’t have homogenous blood of only European ancestry – The other tinges of ethnic ancestry may be so small that they are not obvious nor detected, and are thus obscured to the point that a White person may look “purely” White. However, due to history of slavery and trading and interracial copulation, even “White” ppl may have an undetectable tinge of non-European blood from a single distant obscure ethnic ancestor. Just like ppl with MAJORITY indirect African ancestry are considered Black, ppl with MAJORITY indirect European ancestry are considered White. This should not imply pure ancestry or pure blood so to speak. “Biracial” or “mixed” ppl, IMO, are ppl who have parents who are considered TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT RACES, i.e. Black-White, White-Asian, Black-Asian, Asian-White, Hispanic-Black, Hispanic-White parents, and so on. I think that any cultured adult who has a remote sense of intelligence should know by know that alot of ppl have bits and pieces of ancestral racial diversity, but to society, in political and demographic terms, we aren’t considered directly “mixed” automatically. All in all, we are original and exotic in our own ways: God took the time to ensure that we were all specially created with our own phenotypic and personal identity, down to the fingerprint. Love yourself!