Thursday, June 19, 2008

Color Confusion

Hold on to your hats:

In South Africa, Chinese is the New Black

A high court in South Africa ruled on Wednesday that Chinese-South Africans will be reclassified as “black,” a term that includes black Africans, Indians and others who were subject to discrimination under apartheid. As a result of this ruling, ethnically Chinese citizens will be able to benefit from government affirmative action policies aimed at undoing the effects of apartheid.

You know, I've said it before and I'll say it again: race is just a social construct. As a woman of color, I embrace my new "black" brethren (and sistren, O yes). If anything, this ruling just underscores the inherent ridiculousness of the whole apartheid system and makes the whole concept look even more ass-backwards, if that were possible.

(Is it possible I haven't posted in ten days? Insanely busy with a 500-person event last week at work, just trying to get caught up. My apologies!)

2 comments:

Cee in SF said...

Congrats on the successful event. (I assume it was successful because you were involved and I know and love your work. I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.)

That gov't has its head up its ass.

Lisa Blah Blah said...

Why, thanks. (It went well but I am completely exhausted, and I wasn't even in charge of it - thank Gawd.)

Yeah, I saw that headline and laughed and laughed. Some of the comments from readers on the article were pretty inane. I did a lot of eye-rolling while reading them.