Racial descriptions

In America, of all places, why is this still a discussion?

After all the federal government and census still have “categories” like the old days, with some upgrades to things like Hispanic. If I were a kid whose mom and dad were from two different races, or two different tribes, I would resent many of the words and categories where mixed kids are categorized. After all, I am part Mom and part Dad, not some term like Latino, or Black (or African American today). I am an American. So are most of us. I do applaud the government census people for doing the best they could with what the politicians have dictated. http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2001/raceqandas.html

Now for the fun part. I always enjoy the arguments about beauty for females. Halle Berry and Mariah Carey come to mind. Do I claim them for Caucasian, as I do, or do I write them off as Negro (which I don’t). I really don’t care; they are female beauties, and talented.

Now the not so fun part. It tears me apart to think kids of mixed race marriages are often supposed to choose between their Mom and Dad. This is wrong to ask them to declare a race. After all, they are Americans.

Most of us are mixed, be it racial, tribal, or some other worldly variation.

And the politicians in pursuit of public monies and affirmative action goals that depend on racial declarations are part of the problem, not the solution. That they defend themselves comes across to me as self serving to generate income and influence for themselves. How about their constituents, but wait a minute, no constituent voted for them.

And let me proceed to be really politically incorrect. It is about America.

Like the story of the wise blind men describing an elephant to a village of blind people, another racial/tribal question of who is a native american and who is an immigrant or explorer from the old world comes up. In the story, all the blind men were correct in what they felt.

If an old world european comes to the USA area in 1600, and in my question intermarries with local indigenous people, are their offspring native americans or old world europeans? Using my 30 years per generation belief, if we continue for 6 generations (180 years), is one progeny who is 1/64 old european a native american or an old european?

There is no "official" answer best I can figure. The rules for tribal membership for the 500(+) native American tribes vary all over the place. And tribes can be thought of as states, so their rules are similar to states' rules.

Now we come to a potential candidate for President, Barack Obama. He is being advanced as a Negro. That’s BS. He is either ‘mixed” to the race mongers, or just an American to me. I still can’t believe he is being represented as a Negro. When are we finally going to break all the old molds?

There are many present day real world analogies. For example, many christian and muslim missionaries in the past have "converted" third world indigenous peoples only to find today that the converted people practice a combination of the "new" religion and the previous animist religion(s). How does a politician or society categorize these people?

America is the new world. We are different. And it is not racially described. There is something else going on. And it is good.