Kevjumba's blog post about race was brought to mind this week, while the class discussed historical interpretations of race and its affects on science in Somerville's "Scientific Racism".
Somerville criticizes Flower and Murie for "constructing the site of racial difference by marking the sexual and reproductive anatomy of the African woman as 'peculiar' between races". These supposedly scientificly and objectively minded writers claimed: protruding buttocks and "developed" labia minora are "sufficiently well marked to distinguish theses parts from those of any ordinary varieties of the human species". Here is where Kevin comes in, he claims that girls are like m&ms. He opposes Flower and Murie's claims on the importance of external features in defining people. Kevjumba declares that even though women appear different on the outside with their "skin tone, culture, or lifestyle", their real essence is unaffected by their external appearance. According to Kevin all m&ms are delicious.
Interestingly, Kevjumba's father's notions about racial purity play into the discussion about eugenics in Somerville's article. His parents want him to have a pure Asian baby. So to upset his father, Kevin informs his father that he not only got a girl pregnant but that she is black. The father's reaction escalates upon the pronunciation of race. Interestingly enough, Kevjumba does not decide to use a white woman to prove his point but an African American woman. Thus he plays into the sexual, racial characterizations of the 19th century. According to Somerville, the white women were perceived as "explicitly privileged" pure "while implicitly suggesting African American women's sexual accessibility".
Another point of interest is with Kevjumba's final point of having multiracial babies. Davenport is criticized for claiming, "a hybridized people are a badly put together people and a dissatisfied, restless, ineffective people". Well, Kevin claims that it would actually be better for society if there were more multiracial babies. Then racism would cease to exist because of one's inability to insult or judge another if he does not fit into racial norms.
Yet, wouldn't choosing someone with whom to procreate based solely on their difference in racial affiliation than yours, be a racist decision? Therefore propagating racism? And does Kevjumba's critique of his father's sexism work? Especially when the way he defends women is by objectifying them into tasty little treats that have no difference in personality or disposition. And he also choses a black woman as the ultimate sign of racial deviance from pure asian babies.
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