Colouring People

My house was a very popular place in my old neighbourhood. Kids used to hang out there. Kids of all descriptions liked the abundance of video games and good snack food. There was a little girl, about five, who lived a few blocks away, and she was a lovely child. She had beautiful dark ebony skin, doe eyes, a sweet disposition and a mischievous smile. One day she commandeered me to colour in a colouring book with her. She was colouring in people, giving them names of people she knew. I pointed out that she had coloured in about every person we knew but not one representing herself. She said she wouldn't do that because she was " black and ugly". She started to cry, and I told her she was very beautiful, that I didn't feel ugly, and I was black, too. She looked at me as if I was crazy and said, " But you're a light colour." I rightly felt obtuse and insensitive. I persisted that she should see how beautiful she really was, and we talked and started to cheer up and laugh, but I know deep down the remnants of those feelings held onto her little heart She was only five years old, but she already knew she couldn't (and shouldn't) identify with me. I can imagine that, over time, people will continue to tell her that she and mixed people are the same and she may grow to be either more self-loathing or to hate mixed people instead. Neither is a very healthy option. After being told all her life that she and people who are actually mixed-race are the same, genetically, she can't help growing up thinking there is something wrong with somebody.

This is not an exclusively black issue either. Misidentification abounds in our race-obsessed society. Groups that have distinct phenotypic differences seek a single prized social classification, white. Some are phenotypic blends as well, in other words are very mixed. Some are not. Take the example of a dark-featured woman of North African extraction I used to know. In order to satisfy her Northern European classification, she dyed her black hair light blonde, leaving it the consistency of candy floss while trying various unnatural looking contact lens colours to lighten her eye colour. Christie Brinkley was her idol. The damage to her psyche was much deeper than the damage to her hair and always evident. Somewhere down the line society implied that she and Christie Brinkley are in the same ethnic (white) pool. So she tried to live up to it. Yes, I am aware there are people of North African heritage who have blonde hair and blue eyes. There are also Sub-Saharan Africans who are of Semitic blood. She was neither, and she was oblivious to other similarly endowed women who wore their dark good looks with style. Once, she even criticised my purchase of a dark featured doll for my niece because it had brown hair, brown eyes and olive skin. It floored her that I had not chosen a white, blonde doll. " Why would anyone not want a blonde doll? " She was bigoted against her own heredity.

People who perpetuate the idea that individuals are full members of ethnic groups they don't fit into are being, perhaps through unintentional thoughtlessness, cruel. They choose to ignore the damage their personal agendas can inflict upon the sense of self and family circumstances of others. While it is painfully obvious that such monoracial preadiing purists have no respect for the turmoil of the multiracial individual, they also ignore the harm done to the identity of the single-race, or ethnic person. Advocates of the 'one drop' theory (one drop of black, or Asian or whatever ‘blood’ makes you only that) have only personal interest at heart in the imposition of false identities. We can divide these reasons into political and/or social ones. What it boils down to is that they are getting something from enforcing monoracial doctrine. These ideas have hurt more people than they have ever helped, and there are those who don't wish to see the world ever take steps to move beyond them. Their purposes are not served if the concept of race, which stands on dubious scientific footing at best, is eliminated. Clinging to these outmoded racial distinctions maintains the evil associated with their imposition. Whether it's avoiding the disapproval of older family members who hold on to the 'one drop' theory of racial identity due to past (bad) experience, getting a congressional district apportioned as you please, or gaining a social distinction from being the 'lightest' people in the room, it is imposing lies, misery and a low self image on countless others.

You don't have to be exactly the same as somebody else to love them. None of us is exactly the same as any other person, and most of us are blends of different ethnic groups, truth be told. Accepting this reality is the only way to prevent the imposition of the ideas of arbitrary, 'desirable' racial characteristics upon even the youngest children. Categorising people into hypothetical races and then trying to " squeeze people who are products of the intermingling of two or more of these bogus identifiers into the moulds, underscores the weirdness of the whole idea of racial constructs. Perhaps, worst of all, it instils a sense of " I SHOULD look a certain way" in children, and then it makes it worse by including people in the child's racial grouping who have only some (or even none) of the external characteristics of that grouping. It makes beautiful children believe they should be something they can never be, because other people in their race are those things. If we can't understand this and understand each other, we, as a society, have no future worth aspiring to.

1. By narrating the incident with the little girl, the writer shows

A. that racial constructs are most harmful to children.

B. how racial constructs can damage a child's self-esteem.

C. that children are unable to understand racial constructs.

D. the way in which racial constructs work.

2. Why did the writer feel " obtuse and insensitive"?

A. She had failed to perceive that the child was anxious.

B. She had misunderstood the child's concern.

C. She had assumed the child was racially aware.

D. She had denied the child the chance to explain.

3. In the second paragraph the author states that

A. all people of mixed race want to be white.

B. all people of African origin change their appearance.

C. appearance can vary irrespective of racial origin.

D. many whites have problems with the way they look.

4. The woman the writer discussed in the second paragraph

A. modeled herself on a person from a different ethnic pool.

B. was anxious to make herself look like the writer.

C. would not normally be classified as ‘European’.

D. tried to add style to her dark good looks.

5. The writer believes that arbitrary racial classification

A. is always deliberately hurtful.

B. is made out of respect for others.

C. causes harm to all those affected.

D. is the result of malicious action.

6. In the third paragraph the author states that monoracialism

A. is a thing of the past.

B. continues because of vested interest.

C. is caused by low self-esteem.

D. only survives through fear of criticism.

7. The author feels that the idea of separate racial groups

A. is sometimes socially desirable.

B. is without foundation in reality.

C. happens naturally to all societies.

D. affects adults more than children.

Завідувач кафедри __________ Т.І. Крехно Викладачi _______________І.С. Лученцова

_______________ А.О. Пікалова

_____________ C.О. Тимошенко

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