From my amigo Salsassin in the MixedFolks.com Forum:
So how about giving us a synopsis of what you have been involved in lately.
There hasn’t been a lot going on lately with regard to multiracial advocacy. Things are really, really quiet. Almost eerily quiet. I’ve been answering some email and doing the usual work of editing and publishing of commentary and paper submissions for the websites (always looking for more writing submissions).
I’ve signed The Multiracial Activist onto several national joint organization civil liberties and privacy related coalitions, letters and petitions over the last couple of years. Through The Abolitionist Examiner I was involved in the Racial Privacy Initiative in California. The Multiracial Activist has also been a plaintiff in a two-year old lawsuit against the Justice Dept that has been petitioned (via the Center for National Security Studies) for consideration to the U.S. Supreme Court. We’ll see if it goes anywhere, assuming it gets certified. With this unpredictable batch of justices, its a toss-up. Anyway, things should be heating up on that issue very soon (secret post-September 11 detentions of Arabs and Muslims). Some of the families affected by similar, more public recent immigrant crackdowns have involved the deportation of interracially married Arab spouses with multiracial children. The prospect of breaking up these families on the basis of the “racial” designation of these individuals for minor immigration violations is a chilling prospect, given that such minor violations are harshly enforced on only one segment of the immigrant population. If such regulations were enforced uniformly that would be different, but an entire segment of society is clearly being held to a higher standard than the rest.
Another project I’m starting will attempt to counter this false portrayal of “racial” medical data as anything other than the fraud that it is. How accurate is “racial” data that is collected primarily via box-checking that results in multiple responses being collapsed back into ONE box via the one-drop rule as it is currently manifested via Directive 15 by the OMB? Further, how accurate and safe is a medical analysis based on data that is gathered via the old-fashioned eye-ball guessing game? Looking at someone and then silently recording a “racial” designation based solely on what the observer THINKS the patient’s “race” happens to be is also a major source of the medical data that was at issue in recent press stories. In essence, the two most popular methods of collecting medical “racial” data are hopelessly flawed by design and are anything but scientific in nature. It was the medical necessity argument that was used to defeat Proposition 54 in California – and that was based on inaccurate, arbitrarily collected data compiled via completely unscientific methodology rooted in junk science and the one-drop rule. This is dangerous stuff that was promoted as matters of life and death by individuals and organizations that know better. The truth may not be what they want the public to hear, but it has to come out. There is nothing scientific about making genetic assumptions based on arbitrarily created boxes, eyeballing guessing games and one-drop category collapsing, as is currently the status quo for this type of data collection. Hell, from there we are just a hair’s breadth away from endorsing the falsehood of assigning intelligence and behavior traits by group based solely on skin color or other factors that only examine part of an individual’s genetic composition.
There is also the current scandal in the military regarding the American Soldiers who married Iraqi women while on patrol, against the orders of their unit commanders. They have been charged with dereliction of duty since their weddings took place while they were supposed to be conducting patrols. I’m drafting a letter to be submitted to the Dept of the Army, suggesting leniency for these men. From my standpoint as a former Marine with some limited military justice training, they are guilty of dereliction of duty under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but its the Army’s choice as to whether or not they punish them for the dereliction and how severe they make the punishments. That said, everyone in uniform is guilty of dereliction (at varying degrees) at one point or another, but it is only in rare instances that you get punished for such dereliction. You ain’t human if that hasn’t happened at least once. However, in this case its a very public dereliction which embarrassed their commanding officers and potentially undermined their authority. I ain’t saying I agree with these Soldier’s CO, but I see where he is coming from on the issue. This case isn’t good PR for DoD, so they may be willing to put some pressure on the CO to cut the guys some slack and just administratively or bad conduct discharge them rather than sending them to the brig. Further, their new wives are in danger and need to be allowed to exit the country immediately. This particular issue is a distraction for their entire unit, and they need to handle it, but I think that jail time will send the wrong message. I’m of the opinion that the commander overstepped his bounds when forbidding these men to marry the women on their day off. That said, the men aren’t blameless. They did violate a direct order on top of dereliction of duty. Both sides contributed to this unnecessary situation, so I believe a little leniency and expediency is in order. Anyway, when finished, I’m going to circulate that letter among several multiracial/interracial organization/publication leaders for their signatures.
I’ve also been involved in some private discussion amongst a core group of activists about possibly pushing a multiracial classification in California. Nothing serious there, just some talk for now. Honestly, I’m not crazy about the idea, if only because I’m fearful that the NAACP will joyfully kill it the way it killed the national category in 1997. Then again the silver lining is that some folks (who naively wish to pretend we haven’t tried this shit before) may be forced to face certain realities – that many traditional civil rights organizations are steadfastly opposed to official recognition of individuals of multiracial ancestry. That’s a lesson many indivduals who speak of the multiracial movement with so much diarhhea of the mouth don’t really understand. They have no frigging clue with regards to the amount of time and effort by several organizations and individuals on a shoestring budget (mostly out of their own pockets) that was invested in that category push over a several year period. I get tired of having to explain the same thing over and over to certain individuals who weren’t there, didn’t know shit about it, yet love to falsely lecture others on such matters. You know some of them! Anyway, those who know the history, know the real deal. It ain’t how its portrayed by the politically naive who weren’t there and are content to tell lies about activities they have no firsthand knowledge about.
On an administrative front, I’ve decided to replace the labor intensive New Stuff page with A Mixed Blog, which is intended to be a collaborative weblog, allowing for an eclectic mix of contributors (not just me). I’m hoping that once it gets a good number of contributing bloggers that it will be a popular spot on the blogosphere and an efficient tool of communication for ‘our’ issues (sharing of news links, short commentary on current affairs, announcements, calls-to-arms, etc.) I’m still in need of bloggers for that page – hint, hint.
Also, on the backburner, I’m planning to contact some of the Melungeon leadership regarding resurrecting the contents of an old Melungeon domain that went out of commission a few years back. There was a lot of interesting historical information (going back about 100 years or so) that should be republished. I’m happy to provide the bandwidth and the elbow grease to get them back online.
Those are a few projects for now, on top of the weekly maintenance and additions to the news links; updates on the links pages; and bimonthly publication of commentary and articles, etc. Like I said, its fairly quiet right now. That isn’t likely to last, especially as we get closer to the 2010 Census. I expect a push by certain organizations to further dilute and obfuscate the multiple checking of “racial” classification boxes on the Census and other forms that collect “racial” information.