Passing: What Are You?

[ziasudra]

Tonight I went to a WOW Cafe show. I saw Passing, "an investigative dance-theatre work that examines how people of mixed race or ethnicity form their identities." The dances and the monologues were very thought-provoking: What is race—is it genetics? Is it an innate identity? Is it a social construct? How does one "define" race—by skin color? By percentage of "colored" blood? By one's ethnic association?

The WOW Cafe has other shows throughout the month of May too. My friend Sandra is producing a bunch of the shows. If you're in NYC, go check them out!

And good news! I have an interview on Monday. It's going to be a phone interview for a copy editor job in NJ. I'm excited about it ^_^

Good sports news:
SI.com: Fastest man on earth: Gatlin breaks record in 100 with time of 9.76 seconds

Comments

[sad1225.livejournal.com]

Isn't the best way to define race by some set of genetic markers? It's a little muttled right now, but it would be an objective method.

[sad1225.livejournal.com]

*muddled.

[ziasudra.livejournal.com]

I think the debate on that is where you draw the line with percentages -- when is a person a mixed race and when is someone so mixed that s/he's a mutt?

The play demonstrated the issue well -- there's no absolute definition/standard to go by. And I'm not sure if there should be or not.

[tanechigai.livejournal.com]

I think that race and ethnic identity are no longer necessarily synonymous like they once were. At least not in America or places were there is a lot of intermarriage. My younger half-sisters can identify themselves as native-american if they want to. Though my sister Lisa with blond hair has a harder time being beleived by people outside the family. But they have had enough contact with relatives on their father's side of the family that they feel some sort of link to their identity. At the same time, they were raised mostly in the suburbs, so who knows whether they are "more" or "less" native-american than another child of the same genetic make-up who was raised on the reservation? In short, no real answers, only more thoughts and questions.

[ziasudra.livejournal.com]

You would love the Mamdani book about the Rwanda genocide. The authors spent a good portion of the book exploring the construction of race and ethnic identity, and the differences between the two. And he brings in the influence of colonialism, which further shows that ethnicity and race aren't constructed in isolation.

lol, "no real answers, only more thoughts and questions" had been the conclusion of each of my classes for the past year. I guess it's a good thing. Area studies and anthropology aren't going to be out of business anytime soon ;)

[tanechigai.livejournal.com]

I just watched "Hotel Rwanda" with sad1225 last week. It seems the ethnic difference was imposed by outsiders, and didn't have much to do with anything else besides class and power.