Is It Better to Be Mixed Race - Monday night, C4

[howard male]

Never mind black holes, did anyone else see 'Is It Better to Be Mixed Race' ? It all started off a bit Blue Peter, with the female presenter repeatedly asking the question, just in case we forgot what we were watching. But eventually it settled down to an interesting and thought provoking hour of telly. So what thoughts did it provoke in you?

And by the way, I don't want to spoil it for you, but yes, it is better to be mixed race. So that's nice.

[Charlie]

And by the way, yes, it is better to be mixed race.

Let's see: Barack Obama, Lewis Hamilton, Theo Walcott.. what more evidence do you need?

But the programme's conclusion is that if you make sure the parents are from completely different gene pools, there is much less likelihood of their children having the kind of disabilities which are often magnified when relations propagate.

Basically: all white Europeans are from the same gene pool and would be advised to look outside for their partners, at Africa and Asia in particular. Is this the unconscious pull that has led some of us into preferring music from those continents to the inbred rock music that has bedevilled pop music since the 1970s?

[Des]

inbred rock music

Having said that, Charlie, there are relatively few rock bands from Norfolk.

[c hristian]

what the hell are you talking about?

...that's basically what this post brought up in me. Probably b/c the BBC reaches me only through American public media.

[CantSleepClownsWillGetMe]

Basically: all white Europeans are from the same gene pool and would be advised to look outside for their partners, at Africa and Asia in particular.

So. If it's just white Europeans who are being advised to do the looking (I presume it is because you didn't mention anywhere else that was) then why would anyone from Africa or Asia want to take a dip in our pool (so to speak) if they are already fine the way they are?

And,

inbred

Tut-tut.

[howard male]

June asked -

then why would anyone from Africa or Asia want to take a dip in our pool (so to speak) if they are already fine the way they are?

They're not fine, June. They too have deseases which specifically pick on their race. I rather liked one scientist's decision to talk in terms of 'populations' (in a geographical sense) rather than races, as this is all about the dangers of isolated gene pools and how they make us more vulnerable.

But anyway - just go and catch the program and then we can talk.

[Neil Foxlee]

I haven't seen the programme, but I'd venture to suggest that the question posed in the title is pretty meaningless because it's so vague. Better from what viewpoint?

So far, the only advantage that's been mentioned is genetic, but what about the individual experience of being 'mixed race' in a particular society at a particular time?

It's not much consolation knowing you're genetically better off if you're the victim of discrimination and prejudice, possibly from more than one direction. Obama may have come to terms with being a 'mutt', as he's described himself, but he didn't find it easy (see his autobiography) and others, depending on their environment, may find they never do. (Even Obama had to cope, in his presidential campaign, with being perceived as too black by some whites and not black enough by some blacks - not in terms of skin colour, obviously, but in terms of ethnic/cultural identification.)

[Neil Foxlee]

Like I said, I didn't see the programme, but I did see the earlier programme on The Human Zoo ( http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the- ... od#3008352 ) - the exhibiting of African pygmies, for example, at the St Louis World Fair in 1904 and subsequently at the Bronx zoo.

What emerged from this fascinating programme was that one of the great influences on Hitler's and the Nazis' racial theories was the American 'scientific' racist, Madison Grant ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison_Grant ), and specifically his book The Passing of the Great Race (1916), which had sold 1.6m copies in the US by 1937 and was translated into German in 1925. Hitler wrote to Grant, describing the book as his 'Bible'... It was also cited in evidence at the Nuremberg trials by Hitler's personal doctor, who also happened to be head of the Nazis' euthanasia programme.

Ironically, Grant was also a pioneer of the conservation movement, being credited with the saving of many different species of animals, founding many different environmental and philanthropic organizations and developing much of the discipline of wildlife management.

(Note to C hristian: for some reason, the English county of Norfolk and the region of East Anglia in general are associated with incest and inbreeding. Something to do with urban sophisticates regarding rural folk as mentally deficient, perhaps - I'm sure you get the same kind of thing in the States.)

[Neil Foxlee]

Lest we forget, another great influence on the Nazis was the British 'Aryan' supremacist Houston Stewart Chamberlain, whose book The Foundations of the 19th Century (1899) was described by the main Nazi newspaper on his 70th birthday as the 'gospel of the Nazi movement'. Hitler attended his funeral in 1927.

[Adam Blake]

As a Jewish Celt, I worry a lot until it makes me ill which is what I was worrying about so then that makes me angry so I get drunk and pick fights with people which makes me worry and feel guilty about what I've done and what's the point of it all when I'm just going to get ill and die eventually so I write epic poetry and would grow my hair - except it's fallen out with worrying so I get drunk and pick fights with people.

Would it be better to be one or the other, do you think?

[kas]

I wonder if the population argument could be used to silence the bigger boys who bully you on the school yard?

[silly dialogue removed by author]

Needless to say I didn't see the programme, but wouldn't mind to. Finland is actually one of those European pockets with an excessively homogenous population. Cue interest shown by population scientists and a selectionf of generalised diseases uncommon elsewhere.

However I don't think Europe itself has been very homogenous throughout its history. Numerous migrations from one region to another have surely had their impact.

No source to quote however, and I'm hardly a population scientist...

[c hristian]

aaahh. well you'll be happy to know that I successfully escaped all that in-breeding that happens on the rock, the island, the peninsula, aka the Cape, and fortified my genes and DNA, here in Babylon.

[Charlie]

As a Jewish Celt, I worry a lot

One of the experts consulted in the programme is himself an Ashkenahzy Jew from a background where generations of related people had to be approved by the peculiar rules of what constitutes an acceptable orthodox Jewish marriage partner. As a result, both of his children were born with an untreatable, incurable condition that leads to death by the age of three. This is what I meant by 'inbred'. It may be a non PC term, but it means what is says.

Although it may be true that mixed race children were treated badly in the past, it feels to me that attitudes are changing fast, particularly at school where peer approval and acceptance means so much. I have two mixed race grandchildren whose qualities are recognised by adults and other children. The times have changed.

[Neil Foxlee]

It would be interesting to have comparative statistics for intermarriage between individuals of different ethnic groups. Which groups have the highest percentage of intermarriers, and which the least - and why?

[NormanD]

One of the experts consulted in the programme is himself an Ashkenahzy Jew from a background where generations of related people had to be approved by the peculiar rules of what constitutes an acceptable orthodox Jewish marriage partner.

The main 'approval' is marrying within the religion (ideally, to a member of the opposite sex [insert joke symbol]). Marrying outside the Jewish religion would be forbidden, although marriage between members of different 'tribes' would generally have been deemed OK.

Geographical mobility, and living in small communities, are the main hindrances, as they limit the choice of sexual partners (sorry, I mean partners in loving, rabbinically-ordained marital relationships). Ashkenazy Jews would have lived, married, and bred, locally, but this is little different from any other group of people anywhere else in the world. Every geographically-confined group of people has its own medical peculiarities which sometimes get inherited, jump generations, and then become re-active.

I stand to be corrected on my comments re Jewish 'tribes' as it's a long time since I played with this team. My four grand-parents came from four different areas of Ashkenazy settlement, so who knows what I've inherited from them? I'm starting to worry now.