#mixed race history

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Proximity Alarm! Or, What Even Is Culture? Or, Funny, You Sure Look Jewish...

I've gotta get this out of my head because it's... Well, the thing is, it's NOT weird to me, but I think it would be weird to other people, so I'm just trying to calibrate myself. The following will be tangled brain yarn.

I'm name-checking an old joke, but maybe you never strayed across it. A little old lady on the bus says to a younger man, "Pardon me, are you Jewish?" He says, "No, sorry." But she really won't let up about it, she's asking him if he knows certain families in her neighbourhood and trying to get him to trust her and open up and finally he loses all patience and says, "Okay! You found me out! I am Jewish! Will there be anything else?" And the punchline, of course, is "Funny, you don't look Jewish."

I've strayed across a fellow NB who shares a lot of my intersections, but the European side of their family is Jewish and mine is Catholic, except...

Right away, our roots are in Eastern Europe, so I let them know, Hey, we eat a lot of the same food! Potato pancakes and Manischewitz, right off the bat. I probably could've namechecked kolache and had some recognition too, due to the Slavic countries trading language like Pokémon cards.

But it's not just that. I picked up a lot of stray Yiddish as a kid, either from people who were near or in my family. I try not to use it now, because somebody might get upset when I step on their culture... But if I grew up with it, what do you call it?

I think part of this is because my mom ALMOST married a certified Nice Jewish Boy. He had a delicate old grandmother who would have literally died if she knew he was engaged to a Catholic girl. Mom had to go to synagogue and pass, and prepare to convert. Grandma lived, even if the engagement didn't, so I gotta figure Mom did pass, or Bubbie was smarter than she let on and just let the family pretend. But, all that stuff my mom picked up, on top of the Eastern European background, she kept.

So, my standard, "bounce the fussy baby" song was "Hava Nagila." Mom also taught my cousin Debbie and her kids got bounced to that song! I probably learned how to sing that, phonetically, before I could walk. I had a book with Schlemiel stories in it. I knew how to keep the pastrami and the corned beef Kosher, even if not what to call it. CHEESE? No! We don't put cheese on this meat! Unthinkable! Deli mustard, okay? I didn't have a Reuben with Swiss until I was well into my adult years. I dunno, it just seemed wrong. (I got over it, I like 'em now.)

The result of this is, when I was a kid, I wasn't even trying to pass and I passed. I got a babysitting gig with a Jewish family. I saw the Manischewitz in the pantry with the matzohs and said, "Oh, my mom and Nana love this. Yours too?" The kid couldn't contain herself anymore, and spoke the opening line of that old joke, "Are you JEWISH?" With disbelief. 'Cos I resemble my dad's side of the family too, just with fairer skin. I don't look Jewish.

But I kinda do, too?

And I wonder. I was told my great grandmother on my grandpa's side spoke "Swiss," almost exclusively, such that my mom couldn't understand her. Not Czech, that was different. Well, "Swiss" ain't a language, so what was it? I assumed, because Mom really didn't like Germans, it must've been German. She refused to say "Czech-German," even. She'd say, "Czech-Swiss." That side of the family emigrated from Prague when it was still in Bohemia, well before admitting to Jewish heritage would've gotten you dead in the Holocaust, but there was antisemitism in Eastern Europe at that time too. Kinda always? People got converted by force, and just to blend in. Mom wouldn't have been able to tell between Yiddish and German as a kid. I mean, they're close.

I do know she reprimanded me for saying "schmuck" as a small child. "No, no, that's really rude." "Can I say 'putz'?" "...That's a little better."

And I remember, as she was arranging us in the mirror one day, she told us we had "noble noses." Roman noses. It seemed weird to me, that why I remember. I didn't have a problem with my nose. Why go out of your way to tell me what to call the shape of it? I don't think it even looks particularly "Roman," although it does turn down slightly at the tip. Grandpa's was similar, but more pronounced. Did he go out of his way to tell her it was called that? Did his mom do the same? Is this merely the result of swimming in the bog-standard antisemitism of the past and wanting to differentiate yourself from your Jewish neighbors in the nicest possible way, or are we hiding something?

I'm divorced from my family. I got no one I can ask. But even as a kid, the Pribek family history vanished at Ellis Island somewhere around the turn of the 20th century. We looked for 'em and couldn't find 'em, so a name change may have occurred. My dad had a genealogy hobby and traced the Gonzalez clan all the hell over the place, but Pribek resisted the level of research he was able to do at the time. Joss, my maternal grandma's family, was doable. We found a baseball hall-of-famer! But Pribek? No. I was told, vaguely, that a distant relative had a statue somewhere in Prague, but I don't have a name to look for.

While I was in high school with that babysitting gig, I participated in "Knowledge Bowl" basically a pub quiz, but we'll call it educational and put it on our college applications. The teacher helping us "train" divided up subjects and tried to assign us to learn things we were already familiar with. She was Jewish. She surveyed a pool of mainly Hispanic, white, and South Asian kids and said, "Does anyone know anything about Judaism?" Nope. Nope. Finally, my smartass hand goes up, to be funny. "I've seen Fiddler on the Roof a bunch of times!" I had. We had it on VHS. I got the laugh I wanted, and the teacher said, "Okay, then you learn about Judaism!"

It wasn't much. I memorized some Cliff notes-style information and forgot most of the details, until I took World Religion in college and got reminded. But, broad strokes, I already had most of it. I had the idea of it. Not "obey the law" like Catholicism - Catholics famously do not read the Bible - but know the law, so you can have an argument about it and defend your position. OK, God. I've read your demands. Now let's negotiate!

What the heck do you call growing up so near a thing, but being told over and over again that you're not of it? That's not you. We just do all these very similar things for a different reason. Even if you look a bit similar, it's for a different reason. It's all explainable that way, I guess, but it's still in my brain. So whose culture is it? What even is "culture"?

I honestly don't know, but if you come to my house with latkes, I will steal them and eat them. Seriously, I've done that. I think they were leftovers, but later it occurred to me that my husband's friend may have intended to take them home and eat them himself. I'm so sorry, my dude. You had to put up with your friend's apparently-Mexican spouse screaming, "ARE THOSE LATKES? I LOVE LATKES!" and running for the sour cream and applesauce.

They were really good, though.

[dykefaggotry]

man the other thing that drives me crazy abt the whole "claiming judaism is an ethnicity and religion is race science just like the NAZIS" is that like....

what the nazis believed in was a mythical race of white europeans who were stronger and better than everyone else. they had 0 scientific, historic, or archeological proof of this. it was just a crackpot theory proposed to explain why white europeans were "better" than everyone else and provided an ideal for them to strive back to bc they thought that "pure" race had been tainted by racial "interbreeding"

jews saying judaism is an ethnicity is not bc it's in the fucking tanakh that they came from judea. it's bc there's MOUNTAINS of historical and archeological proof that jews came from that area. there's historical proof of people encountering jews in the middle east. there's firsthand accounts from jews themselves that survived diaspora that lived in that area. jewish DNA, regardless of other race, has a great deal of similarity w arabic DNA. there's MOUNTAINS of historical and archeological evidence that traces the movement of jews OUT of the area and into the rest of the world and the subsequent movement of jews for the next few thousand years as they kept getting kicked out or murdered

does any of that mean that israel should have displaced the people already living there and subjected them to decades of inequality and atrocity? fucking obviously not. but 1) denying historical and archeological fact to throw around your pet antisemitic conspiracy theory makes you sound like a qanon fuckass and 2) comparing that to white supremacists making up a mythical pure white race is just fucking insane and incredibly deeply antisemitic

like you don't have to make shit up to condemn what israel is doing, I promise you. you can acknowledge the nuance and hardship of history without condoning what israel does. israel doesn't need to be made up of pure europeans for you to criticize it. bc believe it or not, europeans are not the only people on earth capable of committing atrocities or having enough autonomy to do so.

[nashvillethotchicken]

Sometimes I think about how loustat are in a placage marriage and make myself insane.

[paunchsalazar]

neck and neck in the bottom awards

[sbrown82]

Meghan Markle's Top 10 BLACKEST Moments! 💁🏾‍♀️

10. Talking Black hair care with Mariah Carey on her podcast (Girrrl...not Murray's & Pink Lotion!! 😆)

9. Helping Black & Brown women of the Hubb Community Kitchen after the Grenfell Tower Tragedy as her first solo royal project.

8. When she reminded err'body on “Suits” that she is NOT a white girl!!!

...And then shutting down corny-ass haters on Twitter for continuing to question her Blackness.

7. When Meghan and her husband's Archewell Foundation supported The Loveland Foundation, an organization that gives Black women and girls across the U.S. access to high quality therapy and support.

6. Sporting all-Black designers while giving us 'bundles on bundles' at the NAACP Image Awards.

5. Taking part in the "Erase The Hate" campaign condemning anti-Black racism.

4. When she FINALLY met King Bey and gave us the vision of Black royalty & Black excellence we kneegrows deserve!

3. When she said "Black Lives Matter" and spoke out on the death of George Floyd.

2. Becoming a real-life B.A.P. and marrying into the British Royal Family - a.k.a. the WHITEST family in the world. Sis was late, only invited her Black mama who proudly wore her locs and nose ring. Had a Black pastor preach, hired an afro-wearing cello player and an all-Black choir to sing...all on Malcolm X's birthday! 👸🏾

1. And chile, when sis exposed those same crumpet-eating colonizers on that Oprah special...ICONIC!!!

Happy Black History Month, y'all!! ❤️🖤💚

[bywandandsword]

Since Hazbin Hotel popped off, I've seen a few times people asserting that there is something racist about Alastor's backstory, given that he is canonically a Creole from New Orleans, but his demon form does not have any overt indicators of his being a person of color

So here's a gentle reminder and clarification, as a Louisiana Creole myself;

"Louisiana Creoles (French: Créoles de la Louisiane, Louisiana Creole: Moun Kréyòl la Lwizyàn, Spanish: Criollos de Luisiana) are a Louisiana French ethnic group descended from the inhabitants of colonial Louisiana before it became a part of the United States during the period of both French and Spanish rule. They share cultural ties such as the traditional use of the French, Spanish, and Creole languages and predominant practice of Catholicism. Some mistakenly think the term is a racial designation, while in fact people of European, of African, and of mixed ancestry have all been termed "Creole" since the 18th century." (x, emphasis mine)

Please pay special attention to the last sentence. While many, probably most, Louisiana Creoles are of mixed-race ancestry, not all are. I'm not saying there aren't valid critiques of Alastor as a character, this just isn't one of them

[robertmatejcek]

Mission Control - digital media - robert matejcek - 2024

"The spaceman says, 'Everybody look down… It's all in your mind'…" - The Killers - Spaceman

tags:

[mimi-0007]

Racist people 🤬🤬🤬🤬

[tyrannoninja]

This is my portrait of the Ptolemaic Egyptian princess Arsinoe IV (b. 68-63 BC), who was the youngest daughter of Ptolemy XII and a sister to Cleopatra VII (the famous Cleopatra). After their father’s death, a secession dispute broke out between Arsinoe, Cleopatra, and their brother Ptolemy XIII, with the Roman statesman Julius Caesar entering the conflict as he became Cleopatra’s lover. After the conflict turned bloody and then ended with Cleopatra gaining the Ptolemaic throne, Arsinoe found sanctuary at the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus (located in what is now Turkey), only for her big sister and Mark Antony to have her executed. Ancient power politics could often be cutthroat like that!

[bmpmp3]

dysgraphic artiƨts risɘ UP!!!!!

[rubberbandballqueen]

also today in queer history class discussion i pitched the question "how has your race impacted your experiences as a queer person" and so one of my classmates talked abt how she was usually the only black person in queer spaces (or if not, then the only dark skinned black person) and talked a lot abt the isolation of it all

which was cool to hear, but not quite what i was looking for, so at the end i was like, "follow-up question: how has your blackness influenced your queerness?"

and after class she told me no one had ever asked her that before and so she'd never had to consider it, but now she was excited to just throw that at every other queer person of color in her life because it's like, "huh. what kind of homoeroticisms DO i experience as a result of my culture? how CAN i express my queerness in a way that also feels at home with my culture, instead of just picking an expression that is one or the other?" and i think that's beautiful. i hope she figures out how she wants to be queer in her own uniquely black way

[corycorazon]

Happy Loving Day!!

Loving day is a celebration of the 1967 US American court case of Loving v. Virginia, in which anti-miscegenation laws were ruled to be unconstitutional. This case was won by Mildred (a black native american woman) and Richard Loving (a white man).

Here is a detailed version of everything to do with the case

Further reading:

Here is a 2007 speech by Mildred Loving, where she calls for marriage equality for all.

A eulogy to Mildred Loving by Marian Wright Edelman.

You can also learn about Blood Quantums in native american communities& other communities of color, plus the harm it causes by clicking on the underlined texts.

For all the children of interracial couples: here is a collection of mixed people and their stories.

[mothkraft]

every day i think abt how diego and hot pants come from working class upbringings compared to johnny and gyro being closer to the upper class...like gyro existed in a bubble with a silver spoon up his ass for most of his life and diego has lived in poverty most of his and man the audacity of johnny and gyro just to despise him based on pretty much nothing

I'm just full of too many thoughts and rambles and no art and grrrrrrr

[bam-stroker]

May I suggest this for your robot playlist

Carnival of Rust - Poets of the fall

Read your recent snippet and went oh hey I think you might like this. Not sure if it goes with your story since all we have is a snippet so far but ;) it made me think of this song.

Ok first - how did I NEVER hear of this group!!? Like, this is the middle school Evanescence era and I'm living for it. Wow, now I gotta go listen to some 2000s alt stuff

I wouldn't say it's too far off tbh! At least for one of the characters I'm still trying to figure out.

I will share some songs I have on repeat as I rotate the ideas in my head these days tho!

and also... Gasolina... It's a joke but it's also not

[jimintomystery]

Apparently Google just kinda knows which cartoon characters have horny search results. This search engine has seen some shit.

[tinuvielsblog]

Lena Horne preforming at L’Olympia in Paris (1947) || photographed by Yale Joel