Whither Miscegenation?
How will interracial marriage unfold in the
coming generations?
By Emily Monroy
The headline said it all: in five hundred years we’ll all be
Black. According to the author of this article, which appeared in
an Italian daily several years ago, international migration, widespread
intermarriage, and falling birthrates in Europe and North America
will ensure that by 2500 nearly everyone on the planet will have black
skin. The piece ended with the line, “Guess who’s coming
to dinner?”
The author didn’t seem particularly perturbed by this situation.
In fact, the last sentence of the article could be taken as a warning
to would-be bigots: be careful against whom you discriminate, for
they could be your descendents. Other commentators have posited a
similar outcome for humanity, one in which extensive interbreeding
will eventually result in a single race, albeit beige- rather than
black-toned.
Some observers are skeptical of such a scenario, however. For example,
journalist Steve Sailer describes the probability of a worldwide racial
melting pot as “highly dubious.” He finds “little statistical
evidence to suggest that there will be significantly greater admixture
in either Asia or Africa anytime in the 21st century.” Nor does
he expect miscegenation to flourish anywhere in Eastern Europe. In
the case of Asia and Africa, few outsiders will want to settle there,
while Eastern European countries will try to keep out any potential
immigrants. Most interracial marriage, says Sailer, will take place
either in areas where it has already occurred on a large scale, such
as Latin America and “some remote islands,” or in “immigrant
magnets” like Western Europe, North America and Australia. Indeed,
Sailer suggests that DNA engineering and interstellar colonization
may further increase genetic differences among people.
_____________________
Be
careful against whom you discriminate,
for they could be your descendents.
_____________________
So whither miscegenation? Perhaps in order to see where it’s
going, we should look at where it’s already gone. That Africa
and Asia are probably not future hotbeds of intermarriage should surprise
no one: while large parts of both continents came under European rule
during the last five centuries, admixture with Whites did not occur
to any significant degree in either. There were a few exceptions to
this rule. As sociologist Pierre van den Berghe explains in his book
Race and Ethnicity, a mixed population called the Coloreds developed
in South Africa as a result of unions between the country’s original
inhabitants the Khoikhoi (formerly known as Hottentots), Dutch colonizers,
and slaves brought to the region from Madagascar, eastern Africa and
the Dutch East Indies. The Coloreds, though of mixed race, are largely
Western in culture. For instance, most are Christian and speak Afrikaans,
a form of Dutch, as their mother tongue. The only other parts of Africa
that “Europeanized” were some of the islands off the coast
such as Cape Verde in the Atlantic and the Seychelles and Reunion
in the Indian Ocean, where White men interbred with female slaves
transported there from the African mainland. Like the Coloreds of
South Africa, the populations of these islands follow a basically
Western lifestyle: almost all practise Catholicism and speak a variety
of either French or Portuguese.
If the Europeanization of Africa was a disappointment with a few success
stories, that of Asia could be described as a colossal failure. Eurasian
communities - Anglo-Indians in India, Spanish mestizos in the Philippines,
and “Indos” in Indonesia - did emerge in the countries controlled
by European powers. But even if these groups adopted their fathers’
culture to a certain extent (the vast majority of Eurasians were born
to White men and Asian women rather than the other way around), they
were too small a percentage of their respective nations’ population
to exert much influence on the society around them either genetically
or culturally.
And what about the traditional hotbeds of miscegenation like Latin
America and the “remote islands” mentioned by Sailer? (He
never specifies what these islands are, but I’ll venture to say
they probably include the Caribbean, some of the islands off Africa,
and others in the South Pacific.) Intermarriage will undoubtedly continue
in these places, even if in most cases it will involve individuals
already of mixed race, such as mestizos marrying other mestizos in
Latin America. Barring a massive influx of “new blood” from
recent immigration, the racial make-up of such countries is unlikely
to change substantially in the next while.
_____________________
According
to one British survey, half of all heterosexual
Afro-Caribbean men and 30% of women have a White partner.
_____________________
It’s more difficult to predict the future of race mixing in “immigrant
magnets” like North America and Western Europe. Intermarriage
patterns for a particular racial community can change due to factors
like the group’s size (the larger the community, the more likely
its members will find partners of their own race), its sex ratio (a
higher number of men than women or vice versa will force members of
the more numerous sex to seek mates outside the group) and other things.
In some countries miscegenation appears to be proceeding fairly rapidly.
According to one British survey, half of all heterosexual Afro-Caribbean
men and 30% of women have a White partner. The high outmarriage rate
for this group may be partially explained by the fact that Afro-Caribbeans
from former British colonies are already quite culturally similar
to White Britons (most speak English as their mother tongue, practise
Christianity, and in some cases even have European ancestry themselves).
Though exogamy (a scientific term for outmarriage) has increased among
Afro-Caribbeans in Britain in recent years, other communities have
seen their outmarriage rates decline. Asian Americans, for instance,
are often cited as a “melting pot” success story for blending
into the American mainstream through intermarriage, mainly with Whites.
However, data from the 1990s shows that marriages between Asians and
Whites fell from 1980 to 1990 while those between Asians of different
ethnicities - Filipinos and Japanese, for example - rose significantly.
These patterns have led some commentators to theorize that a new “eastern
marriage cluster,” whereby Asians marry other Asians rather than
outsiders, may be forming in the United States. So even in the so-called
immigrant magnets minority groups may not necessarily miscegenate
themselves out of existence.
The flip side of the “cosmic race” theory is that if everyone
were racially mixed, racism would disappear. In such circumstances,
according to theorists, there would be no one left to discriminate
against or for that matter do the discriminating. But in reality it’s
doubtful whether a thoroughly miscegenated world would be a racism-free
paradise. In some parts of Latin America where mixing between Europeans
and American Indians is nearly complete in a genetic sense, the privileges
given to White and White-appearing people still exist. Nor are mixed-race
individuals themselves always open to intermarriage, even with members
of their own ancestral groups. As an anecdotal aside, a French-Canadian
friend of mine was almost disowned by his mother for dating a Latin
American girl with strong Amerindian features. My friend’s mother,
as it happened, was a quarter American Indian herself. Though I’m
tempted to ascribe this woman’s seeming racism to ignorance rather
than hypocrisy (being what we would now call borderline retarded,
she may not have known about her Indian heritage), many racially mixed
parents have consciously encouraged their children to “lighten
the line.”
_____________________
It’s
doubtful whether a thoroughly miscegenated world
would be a racism-free paradise.
_____________________
So what’s in store for race mixing in the upcoming centuries?
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s impossible to prognosticate
anything certain. (Then again, I’m sure before Columbus’
“discovery” of America no one foresaw that his voyage would
lead to one of the most massive waves of miscegenation in history.)
History rarely consists of predictable and steady patterns. But just
as those who fail to know history are doomed to repeat it, perhaps
it’s a good idea to see where miscegenation has taken us in the
past in order to see where it’s going in the future.
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Emily
Monroy is a professional translator and is of Irish, Italian and
Norwegian descent. Born in Windsor, Ontario, she now resides in
Toronto. Her articles have appeared in several publications, including
Interracial Voice, Cats Canada, and Urban Mozaik. She welcomes
feedback on her articles.You can contact Emily at emonroy@beachestoronto.com
This
article was originally published in Interracial Voice Magazine. |
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