Last week in my Writing Class, we had an interesting discussion about race. My teacher brought in a Baltimore magazine with a by-line stating that it was targeted at a “polyethnic” audience. She asked us first, “what does it meant to be polyethnic?” Most of the class understood the term to refer to a person of mixed race. Then she asked if we thought that this magazine would have existed ten years ago. There was silence in the classroom as we pondered this question. Then one student responded, “Probably not, because Barack Obama wasn’t our President ten years ago. And besides, not long from now, we will ALL be of mixed race.”
This response kept replaying in my mind all weekend. I thought about how many families I know who have multi-racial parents and children. I wondered: If we continue to have children who are multi-racial, won’t we evolve into a society where our color lines are finally no longer visible? If so, we will no longer be able to label each other by race and racism will cease to exist.
This idea made me feel hopeful and excited. It’s not often we stop and take a moment to reflect on the future of our generation. I hope, if nothing else, this post makes you think. Consider living in a city, state and country with no color lines and what that would mean to you.
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2 comments:
I was just thinking about this the other day and what an interesting society it would be. The down side is that diversity will start to diminish--and that almost makes me sad, since the diversity of our country, and this area in particular, is one of the characteristics that I like best. Thanks for your post, Sarah!
very interesting. But don't forget that diversity is more than differences in race. AND, even if we become a society of differently mixed folk (which would be pretty great, I think), there will still be the infinite varies of cultural and experiential diversity.
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