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Americans assume that race is a biological entity, and use the folk term “blood” (meaning ancestry) to describe it. Since Zimmerman has some African ancestry on his Peruvian mother’s side, he would probably meet Louisiana’s former criterion, that anyone with 1/32 black blood is black. So one possible race for Zimmerman is black. Most Americans would say that discrimination against Hispanics is racial discrimination, implying that Hispanics or Latinos are a race. However, the 2010 census says that Hispanics can be of any race. Hence, we have the hierarchical paradox that Hispanics are a race that can be any race. In any event, another possible race for Zimmerman is Hispanic. The census says that people can only be of one race, so the U. S. government treats the mixed race category as a contradiction in terms. In fact, there has been a generational shift in American culture—people in their 80s would say that someone with any black ancestry is black, and teenagers would say that someone with white and black parents is mixed. Many Americans still believe that a white woman can give birth to a black person (e.g., President Obama), but that a black woman cannot give birth to a white person. Having lived in Brazil, I can assure you that such people would unequivocally be considered white there—but in the United States, if they claimed to be white, many would still say that they are really black, but “passing for white.” So another possible race for Zimmerman is mixed race, though he could be any of several mixtures—white and Hispanic, white and black, black and Hispanic, or white, black, and Hispanic, depending on the cultural categories used by the classifier. Some people view Zimmerman’s killing of Trayvon Martin as a white on black crime, so for them Zimmerman’s race is white. Interestingly, Zimmerman has been referred to as a white Hispanic, but not as an Hispanic white. This is because, most Americans assume that Hispanics are a race, and therefore are not white—so a white Hispanic is a kind of Hispanic. However, the census says the opposite—that whites and blacks (but not Hispanics) are a race. So according to the census categories, he is an Hispanic white—which is a kind of white person. What does this all mean? It means that asking for Zimmerman’s race seems to be asking for biological information about him—but actually it is revealing something about American culture and our own confused ideas about race. Zimmerman’s race is a matter of cultural, not biological information. So different American subcultures classify him differently.
Image source: George Zimmerman Mugshot—Wikimedia Commons http://commons./wiki/File:George_Zimmerman_Mugshot.jpg
Check out my most recent book, The Myth of Race, which debunks common misconceptions, as well as my other books at http://amazon.com/Jefferson-M.-Fish/e/B001H6NFUI The Myth of Race is available on Amazon http:///10ykaRU and Barnes & Noble http:///XPbB6E Friend/Like me on Facebook: http://www./JeffersonFishAuthor Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@jeffersonfish Visit my website: www.
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