{"id":81,"date":"2015-01-28T21:33:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-29T03:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/01\/apropos-of-nothing-what-race-is-this-man.html"},"modified":"2015-02-24T21:35:44","modified_gmt":"2015-02-25T03:35:44","slug":"apropos-of-nothing-what-race-is-this-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/01\/apropos-of-nothing-what-race-is-this-man.html","title":{"rendered":"Apropos of nothing, what race is this man?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
<\/a><\/div>\n

Don\u2019t tell me you don\u2019t recognize him! \u00a0 Star Trek: Voyager and I go way back \u2014 it was how my husband and I first got to know each other, when a group of us got together to watch the show. \u00a0And, in Germany, one of the secondary networks aired Voyager, and it was wonderful German language practice, because, just as in the original, the actors all enunciated their words clearly, and, besides, it\u2019s easy to have a basic grasp of the plot when you know the general development of the show.<\/p>\n

Anyway, this particular character was Chakotay, who gets his own Wikipedia entry<\/a>. \u00a0The character was described as Native American, with the tattoo symbolizing something about his tribe. \u00a0The actor, Robert Beltran, is an American of Mexican descent.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the crazy thing about the definitions of \u201crace\u201d our government uses<\/a>:<\/p>\n

the character, if he was a real person, would be labelled American Indian, defined thusly: \u00a0\u201cA person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment.\u201d <\/p>\n

But the actor? \u00a0Well, he\u2019s white. \u00a0That is, I assume the fact that \u201cHispanics\u201d are generally identified as \u201cwhite\u201d rather than being of mixed European\/Indigenous descent is due to the tricky business of requiring \u201ctribal affiliation or community attachment.\u201d \u00a0Which is just flaky \u2014 no other \u201cracial\u201d definition makes this demand, which, ultimately, puts individuals of Mexican or Central American descent, who tend, if they\u2019re come to America, to be more brown (that is, of indigenous descent) than white, in this odd limbo, where they\u2019re labelled as \u201cwhite\u201d by default, because the Census bureau doesn\u2019t let them claim their indigenous American ancestry because they don\u2019t have a \u201ctribal affiliation\u201d or a \u201ccommunity attachment.\u201d <\/p>\n

Know what else is flaky about the Census definitions? \u00a0The definition for \u201cblack\u201d is circular: \u00a0\u201d\u00a0A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa.\u201d \u00a0(North Africans are, in their definitions, White, as are Middle Easterners.)<\/p>\n

Why was I thinking about this? \u00a0Don\u2019t really know, but, anyway, that\u2019s your random trivia for the day.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t tell me you don\u2019t recognize him! \u00a0 Star Trek: Voyager and I go way back \u2014 it was how my husband and I first got to know each other, when a group of us got together to watch the show. \u00a0And, in Germany, one of the secondary networks aired Voyager, and it was wonderful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[60],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-race"],"yoast_head":"\nApropos of nothing, what race is this man?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Don't tell me you don't recognize him!   Star Trek: Voyager and I go way back -- it was how my husband and I first got to know each other, when a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/01\/apropos-of-nothing-what-race-is-this-man.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Apropos of nothing, what race is this man?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Don't tell me you don't recognize him! 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