The Browning of America, Part II

A long time ago (January 2013) I wrote a blog entitled "The Browning of America." It seems to be even more relevant today than back then, so I'm going to post it again. In 2017 we have more divisiveness about skin color and racial and ethnic identity than ever before. Under the Trump administration we are seeing more and more groups actively promoting racial separation, whites separate from blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans, or any combination thereof. How fruitless. They should surrender to the inevitable--We really will become that melting pot envisioned so many years ago, the national race which is a combination of all those races who have immigrated to this country, all of us some shade of brown, all of us Americans. What I'm saying will offend a lot of people but soon enough we'll see their passing and a more liberal generation will replace them. Can't be soon enough as far as I'm concerned. Here is what I said four and a half years ago:

A bit of news last year that most people didn’t notice or didn’t acknowledge. As of May 19, 2012, in this country there were more babies (under 1 year) of color than white. The media called it “The Browning of America,” a label that says a lot about the future of our country. Demographers also predict that by 2042 we will have no ethnic majority, just a majority of brown-skinned folks of mixed ethnic backgrounds. I remember reading something by Phillip Wylie half a century ago in which he said he looked forward to the day when we’re all a little tan. Well, fifty years later he’d be happy to see his wish coming true. Since our very beginning, the U. S. has been known as the melting pot, meaning we were a nation of immigrants amalgamated into one new nationality. Well, now we’re seeing us as a melting pot of ethnic diversity, a mixture of races too diverse to be labeled. Amazing that as recently as 1967 there were still anti-miscegenation laws in most of our Southern states. What idiocy. One of my nieces, as pale as virgin snow, married a man as black as Columbian coffee. And they have a lovely daughter who is latte tan. She will grow up in a society that no longer looks askance at children of mixed ethnicity, may even marry someone also mixed and have children even more mixed. And who will care? I hope no one. Tiger Woods has described himself as Cablinasian, a mixture of Caucasian, Black, Indian, and Asian. But we don’t need to invent new labels to describe ourselves. I look forward to the time when we no longer need labels for anything—not our religious preference, not our political persuasion, not our ethnic makeup. Especially not our ethnic makeup.