Intro:
Begins with quote from Satra Wasserman (Black dad, Jewish mom)

The biggest favor I did for myself was not trying to choose one race to be, which is a mistake most people in my situation make.”

Do you agree that it is a mistake for mixed race people to “choose one race to be?”

Is it really possible for mixed race people to choose?

Do others “choose” for them?

Is it possible to be one race sometimes, and another at other times?

Have you chosen your own racial (or ethnic) identity?  Have you ever thought about it before?  Do you have a sense of situational racial (ethnic) identity?

 
Stats on Mixed Race America

2000 – there were 1.3 million mixed race marriages
there are at least 3 million mixed race children in the U.S.
 
At the same time,
70% of African Americans (most of whom DO NOT identify themselves as mixed race) have Caucasian and/or Native American
ancestry

The Tiger Woods Phenomenon
Tiger describes himself as Cablinasian

Why have some African Americans responded negatively to Tiger’s self-description?

How is Tiger perceived by most Americans?

Is Tiger a minority, as we are using the word?

 
Racial and Ethnic Differences

Most scientists, such as geneticist Craig Venter, now  assert that race is a  “social, not a scientific” category

Do you think it is easier or more difficult for Americans to accept this notion?

 
Buchanan and Felder:  Racial and Ethnic Differences Endanger American Culture

Buchanan defines a nation as: a country of recognized borders, with a people of common heritage, history, language, faith, culture, customs, and heroes.

Do you accept this definition?  If not, how would you change it?

Does Buchanan’s definition include most entities commonly thought of as nations?  Does it exclude any?

Is there a Palestinian nation?  A Kurdish one?
 

Buchanan writes:
That was the America we all grew up in.  We all spoke the same language, believed in the same concepts of right and wrong as taught in the Old and New Testaments, learned, whether in parochial or public school, the same glorious history.  We listened to the same radio programs, went to the same movies, cheered the same heroes, celebrated the same holidays.

Does this describe your childhood?  Your parents’?
Your grandparents’?  Your great-grandparents”?

Buchanan claims that the U.S. is now a tower of Babel, lacking common basis for national identity.

What is the basis for American identity?

Note:  Buchanan’s example Civis Romanus Sum –means “I am a Roman citizen, not “I am a Roman.”  Is there a difference?

Does having a multi-ethnic population mean we have to adopt a stance of moral relativism, as Buchanan implies with his anecdotes about FGM and statutory rape?

How do multicultural societies decide whose standards become law?

Buchanan insists that earlier waves of immigrants (Irish, Italians, Jews) had things in common with the majority population of their day.

Like what?

If so, then why were they feared by nativists??

 
Are new immigrants to the U.S. different from the hegemonic group in the U.S.?

From earlier groups of immigrants?
 

“Racial and Ethnic Differences Are Not Dangerous”
by Amitai Etzioni

Etzioni disputes the rate at which whites are ceasing to be the majority in the U.S.

But argues that what’s most important is how Americans will relate to one another in the future.

i.e., how they will define themselves, as inherently different, the same, etc.

Argues that many categories, such as Latinos and Asian-Americans, are statistical artifacts, not categories denoting “real” difference

Could an argument be made for classifying us (along with Canadians and Mexicans) as North Americans??  What do we share?  Do our similarities outweigh our differences?
 
What, for Etzioni, is the basis for American identity?