as ridiculous as it sounds I guess if he's being absolutely genuine then I don't see why this is too far removed with someone who believes they're a different gender etc.. in fact perhaps we can have a separate word so people can define their biological 'race' and the race they feel like
Transracial' man born white feels like he is Filipino
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I always knew mankind (yes that includes you too ladies, ladyboys and trans-Dalmatians) would wipe itself out, but I'd always assumed nuclear holocaust. No, it will be pretty liberals squabbling over who's more special
This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, not even with a whimper, but with a lunatic voice screaming "Safe Space!"
No
Rachel Dozeal was an African American civil rights activists a few years ago. Or she was until people found out her parents were White. It's kind of a sad case, really. She for whatever reason got heavily involved in African American culture and rights academically and because she was a bit tan and has frizzy hair (possibly deliberate) she could convince some people she was Black. I think she ultimately half-convinced herself. She was someone who basically got away with living her fantasy life as her real life for a little while. It's a pretty sad case really and the irony is when she was exposed the Social Justice types tore her to pieces for cultural appropriation, "Black Face", etc. It really didn't help that she had presented herself as a victim of racial oppression all this time. The irony coming in that people like me who she probably would have despised actually DO agree with what she tried to defend herself with which is that race is, in large part, a social construct. The USA has so conflated race with culture that they even had to make up a new race for "Hispanics" (who are largely White and many of whom consider themselves White) because the USA can't handle a culture that is distinct or oppressed being the same race as the "White" people. Another case, an African American students group petitioned their university to let in fewer students from Africa because they weren't 'proper Blacks'. I.e. their culture was not African American. So even though she was a fantasist who misled people, cast herself as a victim for her own gain and generally brought it all on herself, I largely agree with her that in the USA, race and culture have been so deliberately conflated that in a sense, it largely is a social construct. And I also have no problem with her making African art (which was what she started out as) because culture isn't genetic. You pick it up, you learn it and you adopt it. And I have learnt, painfully, that African American is a culture, not a race. And if African American student groups can reject Black people from Africa, I don't see why they can't accept a White person who has immersed herself in African American culture. Honestly, the USA is a mess.
Honestly, if this guy has more experience with Fillipino culture than US culture and has the attitudes, tastes and values of Fillipino culture more so than otherwise, then for practical purposes he's Fillipino. It's not like there's some profound genetic difference between a Fillipino and a Caucasian. The important differences are all cultural and he says he doesn't have those. But then I'm not a Social Justice Warrior and I despise Identity Politics, so what do I know?
Whoops - rumbled. Well, I guess you all now know why my posts read the way they do.
Soldato
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What, like transracial?
nah that would be the condition like transgender or transexual
but rather how gender and sex are used to mean different things these days whereas a few decades ago they were equivalent to each other
Soldato
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I'm not sure that transgender is defined as a condition. And I really don't think that being "transracial" would be a condition either.
Wait do you mean psychological condition? Gender dysphoria is the condition in that respect, a transgender person can suffer from gender dysphoria. I don't see why some "transracial" people (if that is the word used) couldn't be said to be suffering from a similar condition.
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Gender and sex has never meant the same thing.
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To be honest it is hurting no one and if he grew up eating the food, having Filipino friends, going to their festivities, chilled with their family and grew up with Filipinos around him, i can see why he would feel connected to Filipino culture.
I spent practically all of my Childhood in the UK but grew up with people speaking Italian around me, spoke Milanese as a first language, was brought up in 'an Italian way' eating a mixture of Italian food and Eastern food. My father and most of my family here is Filipino though. So if my parents are Filo-Ita and i grew up here, do i have any right to claim any of these or all of them. If my blood gives me some right to claiming ethnicity, could people of the same race claim an ethnicity of a country that shares that race despite not being from them?
In the end, i don't think any of it really matters. If it lets this guy feel like his part of a community that he loves, then he can knock himself out. It seems that every brother and his mother is Irish over here on St. Patricks day.
What, like transracial?
Oooh, I have one. Hear me out here. We could call it "Culture". In the same way that gender correlates with sex but isn't constrained to it, we this "Culture" (pronounced kult-ch-ure) would be something that correlates with race but represents the social and psychological entity rather than the physical attributes.
What do you all think?
Certainly nobody has ever asked to have gender with me.
that isn't true, they've been interchangeable in the past (and still are in some circumstances) - though more commonly these days people draw a distinction between them - sure some people have drawn a distinction between them in the past too but it has been quite common (perhaps more so than today) for them to be interchangeable too
you could have someone identify as being ethnicity: Filipino and race: white... but then again I guess that isn't all that uncommon, especially if someone was perhaps born there and not isolated in some expat community... I mean I know a Jamaican guy who is white but ethnically/culturally Jamaican and there isn't anything about say being ethnically British (or indeed plenty of other Western countries) that says you need be of any particular racial background.
I guess though in this case the guy actually takes it a step further than that
Ah the slippery slope becomes even...more slippery.
I take the view that this is all quite dangerous. Just because you think you are a certain race, does not make you a member of that race.
If I like, aspire or admire certain aspects of another race that does not mean I can claim to be a member of that race.
It’s dangerous because even basic fundementals are thrown up in to question. Facts are no longer facts. We are already seeing the erosion of this and the instability it causes culturally and politically.
I take the view that this is all quite dangerous. Just because you think you are a certain race, does not make you a member of that race.
If I like, aspire or admire certain aspects of another race that does not mean I can claim to be a member of that race.
It’s dangerous because even basic fundementals are thrown up in to question. Facts are no longer facts. We are already seeing the erosion of this and the instability it causes culturally and politically.
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Depends on what you consider Japanese brand clothing, if it is Uniqlo then it is time to get a new passport but if it's Superdry then i am afraid you are in fact from Cheltenham
I am transracial enough to know that Superdry is nothing to do with Japan.
Was thinking of Edwin Jeans and stuff like that.
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As always, the question that bugs me the most, is why do people care? Does it affect your life?
I don't understand why people don't just shrug and get on with their lives.
I don't understand why people don't just shrug and get on with their lives.
If he feels culturally Filipino then that’s perfectly sensible. I can’t see any scientific basis for him to claim that he’s racially Filipino though.
That’s the clear dividing line between this nonsense and someone who is transgender - scientific evidence.
That’s the clear dividing line between this nonsense and someone who is transgender - scientific evidence.
Soldato
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Basic fundamentals? Humans are moving towards a homogeneous race anyway, so I'm not sure that it matters.
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I like the South Park episode where Randy becomes a Dolphin.
Yes, but then you get the question of who gets to be the gatekeeper of whether you're a real member of a race or not. And don't worry about how to answer that because the gatekeeper will appoint themself. They always do. Do you want Richard Spencer telling you what it is to be White? Do you want the NAACP deciding what it means to be Black? The problem, simply put, is Identity Politics. The doctrine of defining people by their race. We have a large movement, primarily American, which obsesses over cultural appropriation and other concepts based on the equating of culture with race. If you accept that assumption then something like this is inevitable because someone who is more culturally one group than the other is pushed into stating they're part of another race. Not because they are, but because they exist in a society that insists on categorising people. Thought experiment: you are raised by a Fillipino family, you're fluent in the language and your tastes and values are more Fillipino than anything else. You find yourself in a room full of people who pressure and attack you because you "act" Fillipino. These people think only in terms of race. Your options are start acting the way they think your category should act, or try to assert that they have miscategorised you. Remember, these people think only in terms of race and do not believe in the concept of culture and race being separate. This room is the American Left.
There isn't. But he exists in a society that ideologically does not distinguish between the two. If you attempt to act in a way that "belongs" to a different race, you are attacked for Cultural Appropriation. And whilst we might laugh that off, if you're in an American university or social media, where people believe in micro-aggressions and safe spaces and take that stuff seriously, it can affect you. That's what I think some people don't understand. He's not seeking to make people think he's genetically other than he is. He's seeking a pass card that will let him be who he is amongst people who scream "Cultural Appropriation" in his face or tell him he doesn't belong. That's all he wants. A metaphorical card that says "allow this person to think this way".
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