I'd rather be mistaken for a pickpocket than be mistaken for a banker.

Same thing

Fair enough, but why is a middle class professional lumped in with drug dealers and asylum seekers and stopped by police on a weekly basis? That is where it goes back to racism, for me.

What's the difference??

(I guess now is not the right time to mention that the brown person I have been referring to may be a banker...)

Sooo... posting a totally subjective rant from the other side of the fence is perfectly okay, or am I missing something..?

In Japan, some businesses have signs on their doors saying "No Gaijin". I'd darken some doorways with my white face and get shoo'd away like a flea-ridden stray cat.

Reverse racism in (some areas of) the US is rampant. But if you're white you can't complain about it because you're not a protected class.

LOL. And not to mention that there are bankers or ex-bankers lurking around in this forum.
Not offended though, I have had my share of poking fun at other professions.

one needs to be full of himself or totally right wing nationalistic to groan this post, why does an honest praise of another nation bother you that much?

My mother always said it makes for energetic children. As the product of parents from very different backgrounds, I'm always hearing how beautiful the result is, but it was hard for us kids growing up. Some of my father's side found our very existence upsetting. On my mother's side I grew up far away from them and don't fully understand the language and culture. The community I grew up in reflected neither my mother's or father's backgrounds.

People who know me well sometimes comment that people don't know what to make of me. They can't tell from my name or my face where I come from and this can confuse some people.

I think this next generation may have this easier, as there are more diverse couples having children. But I think parents have to be careful to help children understand how to be two different things at once, and these parents may not know themselves what that is like.

Steering back towards topic , I think living in Switzerland is cool because, at least where I live, the community is quite international and interested in examining different points of view.

Maybe it's about time to talk about people who really make a difference.

It's about how racism/sexism etc. work. And it's everywhere, be it Switzerland or the USA. Respect for Jane Elliot for speaking up for so many years.

see, people have these mutations in their genes and they are heritable. if you get two mutated copies (from mother and father) that protein encoded by the gene is no more fully functional, which may lead to disease. The chances of getting two mutated copies increase with the degree of inbreeding (within family, clan, village, nation, race etc)...so, mixing genes is good to prevent genetic diseases (pretty much every disease, dysfunctionality, lack of performance have a genetic component)

Nazi's missed this point quite badly, but this is what happens when you politicize science

Thanks a lot for this video I'm only 10 minutes in but already, it's affected my life. Gonna watch the rest now..

So, my first wife was a Canadian who married a Zurcher, who divorced him and married an American (me), who became Swiss and dumped his US citizenship after she died, marying later a real Swiss, sort of.

Of course there are the half-vietnamese kids and grand kids, the Thai group, etc. (conveniently leaving out the the cousins from various Carribean islands of the darker persuasion)

So, where exactly are we going with this?

Tom

Four points I would like to make.

1- Why are people so obsessed with their race or race in general? You did absolutely nothing to be the skin colour that you are. People please get over the my race your race thing. It is 2012 baby! I know...I can dream can't I?

2- What is this thing that mixed race kids are beautiful? Are you trying to say black only or white only kids are not beautiful? Less beautiful? Ugly?
Mixed race kids are not beautiful by default. It depends on the features of the parents. Lord know that I have seen many non beautiful looking mixed race kids too.
Also aren't all kids and even all adults beautiful in their own way? By saying mixed race kids are beautiful is in a way reinforcing and making big deal about race.

3- The lady in the video is an amazing woman and I get the points she was trying to make but I would like people to see me just as a human. So don't go out of your way to be extra nice to me just because of my skin colour. That pisses me off even more than straight racism.

4- Good test is to ask yourself if you would let you child marry someone from another race. I am glad my parents passed that test with flying colours.

Yeah. Every single one of them. Munters.

Yours,
A mixed race beautiful person.

Are you the one on the left or right? Are the others in the photo related?

Scarsdale, I can really relate to your thread.

In some ways, I agree that it will be easier for the next generation - but it really depends on the place. In the travelling world, the open minded world, the curious open world - yes. In small villages (just as an example, but not limited to and not every small village) brown is brown, it's not white.

In addition to the video prof taratonga posted, I wanted to add the frustration of being called exotic, or that people don't see me as brown in this culture. I mean this in a way that "Oh I didn't even notice your skin colour..."
I remember an instance when I was quite young; one of my friends told me how lucky I was because I was half white, (whereas she had really dark skin). Looking back - gee what a freaking compliment ().
In one hand, great, I'm glad I'm half white too, because my mum is my mum. On the other hand, I absolutely resent that. Should I feel shame towards the dark side of me? I absolutely have felt like in the past. Now I'm the utmost proud. I don't want to scream and shout it from the rooftops, but I'll say it with pride. I only want that my the 1/4 of heritage that my daughter has doesn't disappear into exoticness, or "nice tan" but she's proud of why she is what she is.

I'm not lucky because of the colour of my skin, but I'm lucky for the insight it's enabled me to have on the structure of this society. To see into the problems a bit more than a person of one background. In one way, us people of mixed backgrounds (and I'm not limiting this to skin colour) may or may not feel the ties or relations to where we've originated from, but have more of a capability to understand the prejudices people face.

Related article http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...answer-curious

ps. sorry if this is too off-topic

One thing I can say, hand on heart, is that I don't care who my son marries as long as she or he loves him and treats him with respect and he's as happy as he could be.

When it comes to love and marriage, in my book, race and sexual orientation are at the bottom of the list of priorities.

That is what my mum said 14 years ago. Looks like you are a good mum