Mixed Blood by Jeffrey M Fish

Kirsty Anne Prescott

April 30th( Due April 30th)

ANT1001 TV24A

Accounting (2nd year)

Mixed Blood by Jeffrey M Fish

Jeffrey Fish's Mixed blood has made me now question the social classes and categories that i have known all my life. Race as can be defined by Britannica as the term that denotes a division of human kind possessing traits that are transmissible by descent and sufficient to characterize it as a distinct human type, example Caucasoid or Negroid. However, this definition that i use to categorize people i meet everyday has now become null and void from reading Fish's piece.

Fish present the two varying definitions of Race from Brazil and United States. The United States has used race as a form of social construct that allows them to categorise individuals on not on their appearance, but by their fore parents. Whereas Brazilians are categorized by the way they look. This presents a case for individuals who may move from Brazil to America. Is the identity that they held for themselves in Brazil now lost because of the differences in the definition of Race?

It now makes me think about the context of Race in my country Trinidad and Tobago , the main racial categories are black or Indian, because that is what the population is comprised of. The number of whites and Asian descendants are limited. However, i am now a resident in the United States and have been characterized as African American, but why can't i be African Caribbean? I don't consider my self American, but i have to conform to America's racial segments.

Racial stratification impacts social inequality especially people of mixed blood. The example that Fish gave of an octoroon who is 1/8 black and 7/8 black is given the derogatory race as black. In times where racial standings were the determinants of jobs and place of residents , these individuals who were not born into a group , but branded by their inferior blood were given the inferior jobs and were categorized as inferior.

As Fish said, race is just a way to justify the exclusion of one particular group of people from others who felt it was necessary. It has no biological or physical reasoning behind it.

Bibliography

Jeffery M Fish, "Mixed Blood". Conformity and Conflict Special Ed. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.2008.