TuesdayAugust192008

Color Us Latino, Part Two: And Then There's The Whole "Sexy" Interracial Thing

mixed_race_baby_8.19.08.jpg

So, while we keep slowly developing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in our mission to have people recognize Latinos are not just one thing, we have to pause, relent, and possibly accept that some people will just never get it. They’ll grasp the basic idea, sure, but then turn concept like “mixed-race” into some terrible “anthropological study” that reduces people to little more than ideas invented by an author and further cements our hope that the internet implodes and that no one will ever again be able to write a blog, ever. Take Freakonomics’ contributer Steven D. Levitt. The “D” stands for “Dkasadiofii@#$% what the fuck:

1) Mixed-race kids grow up in households that are similar along many dimensions to those in which black children grow up: similar incomes, the father is much less likely to be around than in white households, etc.

Hand. Forehead.

2) In terms of academic performance, mixed-race kids fall in between blacks and whites.

Forehead. Desk.

3) Mixed-race kids do have one advantage over white and black kids: the mixed-race kids are much more attractive on average.

DESK. JUG OF KEROSENE.

Jesus Christ. Is this… Are we living in 1952? What is this man writing? Did he, like. Think about this before he put pen to paper dick to keyboard? At all?

“More attractive on average.” According to whom, exactly? Dr. Marjorie T. White? (Guffaw! Sorry.) Is there, like, some “ACME Platonic Ideal Attractiveness Scale” everyone else but us is aware of?

We’re going to out on a limb and say that the perceived “attractiveness” of mixed-race people comes from a mixture of racism and White guilt: They’re “White enough” to fit that standard of beauty, yet “exotic-looking” enough to make people feel good about finding them attractive. And that? Is bullshit.

The Plight of Mixed-Race Children [Freakonomics]

Comments

ay no. this kind of fetishization makes me ill. and that baby is cute. in a non-fetishy way! i think!

Did this guy ever stop to think maybe the academic and family issues stemmed from economic and class barriers and weren’t as he suggests, inherently tied in with race? Man. This shit is tiring.

wow, iddiiiooottt!

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