janw@inmet.UUCP (12/03/85)
I wonder if many agree with me that the permanent way to bury the problem of racism is through racial intermarriage. Brazil, compared to the USA, is an interesting example. It abolished slavery 25 years after US did; its black population was relative- ly greater; yet - compared to USA - it has had a history of ra- cial harmony. There is a correlation between complexion and so- cial position - but merely correlation. It may be because mis- cegenation was never the taboo there that it was here. There is a racist explanation of such things. According to it, ethnic groups of Germanic, North European stock such as English, German and Dutch (Boers) are less tolerant of contacts with blacks than Latin, South European people . In my opinion, that explanation doesn't wash. A rich white gentleman in the old South of USA would fill his house with black servants and let a black woman wet-nurse his children. Had the same black woman entered a restaurant and sat down three tables across from him, he would be full of revulsion and indignation, and would take drastic steps because this would be contact on the basis of *equality*. Now his descendants are no more troubled by this, though not free of oth- er vestiges of racism. Racism is not instinctive or natural but acquired and cultural. The reasons for the intolerance towards mixed marriages and liaisons are historical. It seems that in USA, such unions are becoming more and more socially acceptable - and more frequent, and this is hopeful. Jan Wasilewsky