2008 and 2012

“According to the racial zodiac, 2000 is the official Year of the Mulatto. Pure breeds (at least the black ones) are out and hybridity is in. America loves us in all of our half-caste glory” (429).

 

“The Mulatto Millennium” was written in 1998, so it is understandable how 2000 is addressed as the Year of the Mulatto (a “mulatto” is an individual that is half white, half black, or more generally of mixed race); more accurately, I believe that 2008 and 2012 can better be classified in this way. Last night, America re-elected its first “black” president.

Socially, “hydridity” is acceptable in today’s culture; couples of mixed-race are married all the time, whether it is whites and blacks, asians and blacks, or even people with a little bit here and a little bit there. Hybridity has become common place, but I don’t think people of mixed-race are loved. Before, and even after, the election of President Barak Obama in 2008, people who were opposed to him winning the presidency decided to lash out; with no political stance on which to base their attacks, he was instead attacked personally. People attacked his race, his citizenship, and his religion.

In this election, his race, citizenship, and religion were not the factors that determined “yea” or “nay” votes from Americans, but instead, it was his policies and practices over the last four years. Whether people like him or not as the President no longer comes from whether or not they like the color of his skin. That is why 2008 and 2012 can better be classified as the “Year of the Mulatto”: in 2008, we elected our first “black” president, and in 2012, it did not matter that he was “black.”

I think we are moving in the right direction socially; we are moving from tolerating the actions of others by allowing mixed-marriages to accepting the diversity of people. Standardized forms have not caught up with the current social times so that there is a “check here” box for every “new” race created through mixed marriages, but about as often as you see a “pure” marriage (and a marriage that isn’t broken), you see a mixed-race marriage with beautiful mixed children. Although I am purely white (and pretty pasty at that), technically I am a hybrid, not in the color of my skin, but in my culture; my mom is American, and my dad is British (and now American because he became a citizen). Is there anything wrong with me, or anyone else that is mixed, because parents come from two different places on the earth, pronounce words differently, and have different historical backgrounds? Absolutely not! God made us all beautiful, just the way we are!