Down With the Swirl?

Lil says:

LOL! Totally. Just think – she would be just as quiet or docile as Mrs Woods..LOL!

lexibugg says:

i could care less if you wrote and article about however you feel about being African and what i feel about you choosing to do such is irrelevant. as an immigrant i think a concept you should familiarize yourself with is freedom of speech. she is entitled to write about anything in her personal experience she wishes. what maybe a solution for her may not work for you, but that does not mean you get to tell her what she can, can’t ,should or shouldn’t do!!!! this article was not about “i am better because i am multi-ethnic, because of this, this and this”. it was about her receive a tidbit of info and having the thought that this info would have been useful to defend herself from ignorant individuals.

and how is refuting ignorant, baseless comments with conclusive scientific fact wrong??? you trying to tell someone the appropriate way to deal with their personal issues, and be so condescending about that fact that she is still dealing with her issues is wrong. and this has nothing to do with score settling between the “races”, and the fact that you some how drew that conclusion from this article is quite revealing about some of your own personal issues. it always seems with SOME people the mention of being multi-ethnic, and the hardships that can often be apart of such an identity, insights such a rage and bitterness that results in self absorbed blindness that consumes all reason,logic, and cognition!!

lexibugg says:

it is not theory but fact that if two individuals are both carriers of a particular gene( those of African descent and sickle cell anemia for example)their child is more likely to dominantly express said gene, while a child with only one parent that is either a recessive or dominant carrier of said gene is only 25 to50% likely to dominantly express said gene!!! this is something that is taught in basic biology, and a fact that i was aware of long before the existence of this article!!

teasing being a fact of life does not mean one does not have the right to express their distaste for having to experience such torment. stating facts as a means of self-defense is not teasing, nor is this article going to open the door for non-multi-ethnic children to be tease for not being multi-ethnic. this is also something already in existence.

while all forms of speech are protected by the first amendment, there is a difference between expressing you opinion about personal life experience, and being belligerent and malicious. remember that if you ever have the misfortune to be referred to as on of the many nasty racial epithets in the English language and the perpetrator hides behind the first amendment.

and as for you attempt to attack my character and my intellect, i think i have already wasted enough effort, and dispensed far more knowledge than you deserve. there is no point in trying to combat the illogical, irrational and ignorant, with reason, logic and solid fact!!!

Nne says:

(Sorry all for the incredibly long post…)
At the request of lexibugg and others who found that my first reading of the article was flawed due to perhaps some temporary bout of illiteracy, I decided to skim through the article again. After doing so, I found nothing wrong with my initial reactions especially after re-reading the last paragraph which included this:

“Maybe it won’t cure cancer overnight, but being “down with ‘The Swirl‘” just might be helping to build us all a stronger, healthier world.”

In fact, I am quite surprised that my initial comments were so tame. The only thing that prevented me from flagging this article was the fact that it wasn’t written in German…circa early-1900s….Arguments that even smell like eugenics are not funny. If this was the author’s attempt at some type of Jonathan Swift-like sarcasm, it was pathetic, at best.

I don’t know, maybe it was just the way I and countless number of others I know grew up – fighting fire with fire never works and it brings you down to the debased level of your tormentor. People who are proponents of keeping the races pure, such as those who verbally abused the writer, are just plain stupid. Condescending to their level to suggest that a mixing the races leads us to a “stronger, healthier world,” is, I’m sorry to say, not that far off. In the animal kingdom, females choose their mates based on who will give them a certain genetic advantage – as for us, we are far more complex than that. So when I say that the author’s arguments, were pig-headed – I mean that in the purest sense of the term….(lol…sarcasm). I know that most that are engaged in multi-ethnic relationships do so out of love and not to better the genetic lot of their offspring.

I do not claim to possess more than a basic understanding of genetics – for I am more clinically-oriented. However, I found some of the author’s claims flawed. Assuming that she is talking about a predominantly African American/Caribbean group, then she forgot that in terms of genetic ancestry and predisposition to most diseases – African Americans, genetically, share more in common with Caucasian Americans, than some Africans, as some studies have pointed out (as for popular media, I think someone recently found out that Obama and Cheney were related somehow). For the most part, race is largely a social construct with very little scientific basis. Those who think otherwise, most likely at this point in time, have had their scientific credentials revoked. Also the idea that you could make a significant difference in your progeny’s genetic profile with merely a generation’s worth of “intermingling” is ludicrous. And let us remember, the majority of what is killing us in the US/Caribbean – black and white – is not rare genetic diseases – rather it is diseases whose etiology has a significant environmental component.

As for lexibugg’s reply to my first reply and that of others – it is quite unfortunate that our discussion had to degenerate into well….whatever she was foaming at the mouth about. Her biases against people who are different from her are quite apparent – and like clnmike, I must call her out on such things. First, I am quite aware of the first amendment and its implications. It’s amusing that you assume that as an immigrant, I would be unaware of these things – seeing that several immigrants have to become intimately familiar with the laws of the land before they become citizens – even more so than their American counterparts. I am proudly African American, as I pointed out in my first article I wrote for CLUTCH. I was born in New England to Nigerian parents. It was my funny-sounding name and penchant for rice with goat stew (instead of PB and J like my fellow elementary school classmates) that made me the target of their jokes. I am used to comments like yours, which assume that because my name isn’t Mary, Ann or Susy, that I am a foreigner from a backwards land with no hope of adapting to the American way of life or understanding its laws. I find that most often – people in multi-ethnic relationships or those who come from mixed backgrounds are usually more tolerant towards people like me, but I guess, Lexibugg serves as a glaring exception. It’s easy to assume that because you are different (she mentioned that she is in an IR relationship and dresses unconventionally) that everyone is looking at you somehow or is against you. I know, from personal experience that most people are more interested in their own issues more so than what I wear or who I go home to. If not…oh well. I think Lexibugg is so used to being defensive about her choice in lifestyle, that she pegs her own insecurities on others through useless ranting and raving about how the entire black race cowers in fear whenever we see….omigod…a black woman with a white man.

There is nothing new under the sun, my dear. Nothing.