By now most everyone has heard the statistic that whites will be the minority in America sometime in the near future. But I think what’s more interesting is the trend toward what is called interracial marriages and relationships leading to a fast growing population of Mixed people. The way things are going I wouldn’t be surprised if mixed race people turn out to be the norm very soon and America, and the world for that matter, will begin to look a lot more like Brazil, where the people are largely all a combination of ethnicities and colors and the people are largely ethnically ambiguous looking.
It is a world I personally will be glad to see, not only because it would mean that people must have gotten over their hang-ups about interracial dating, but also because it would pretty much destroy our outdated, stupid and man-made notion of race.
Race, as is commonly used, does not exist. It was a concept invented to categorize people – caucasoids, mongoloids and negroids. It even sounds stupid. Supposedly you fit into one of those and that was that. Well good luck with that concept now. For that matter it didn’t even work before. There were just too many people from all the world who didn’t fit clear ideas of what a caucasian should look like, or a “negro” as was once the term. And where did Arabs fit? Or Latinos, who could be dark, light or in between?
It was all just a psuedo-scientific bunch of baloney that for some reason people still hold onto. Mixed people are already dominating in so many ways, when you consider that relatively speaking their numbers are not yet super large, though increasing rapidly. According to the Census people who reported a background of mixed race grew by 32% to 9 million between surveys. In comparison, single-race population increased 9.2%. That same Census showed that interracial and interethnic marriages grew by 28% over the decade. And the survey did not count those unmarried but dating and I’d bet big dollars that number increased even more. And this is not just an American thing by the way. In Britain, the biggest single increase was in the number of people claiming a mixed-ethnic background. Among children under the age of five, 6% had a mixed background—more than belonged to ANY other minority group.
To me the biggest sign of the move towards Mixed people being the future is the prominence of Mixed people, not even their numbers. Our President is Mixed and many many major movie stars and athletes are Mixed. Former baseball great Derek Jeter and Matt Kemp in baseball. Russell Wilson in football. Halle Berry, Vin Diesel, The Rock in film, Adriana Lima in modeling. Rihanna, Alicia Keys and Mariah Carey in music. Soledad O’Brien in news. The list actually goes on and on.
Such prominence considering the numbers tells me these people are not only being accepted they are being sought after in some ways. The ability of Mixed people to blend across previous ethnic boundaries clearly helps with their broad appeal.
But one thing is certainly true, the walls between groups mixing and dating are definitely tumbling down very fast. As they should. Mixed people are ushering in a new era where old definitions of how we define people will have to change, our racism will have to change, our concepts of beauty will have to change and yes, our politics will have to change to keep up. It is a brave new world and I for one am so glad to see it coming. The more we blend the more we should understand about one another since we will share so much. Mixed people are already leading the way and thankfully soon will be the new norm.
Photo Credit: Hype Hair
