I'm uncomfortable being called black.

[Ganoderma]

hi IamNoah,

Good that you have made this thread. I am born and raised in The Netherlands and I have visited various parts of the world (not yet been in the US).

I tend to advise you that you identify yourself as 'IamNoah', a guy with a husband and a proud citizen of the US. That's all. Immigrants from The Netherlands to the US (among them some of my relatives) also don't identify them anymore as Dutch. They are citizens of the US.

You have uploaded some of your pictures (thanks) and that's great. No one can force you that you must be categorized (or something like that). You can tell people that you don't want to be categorized (eg. because you hold the opinion that this is an outdated concept, or something like that). When people start with argueing about you about this, you might just tell them that you have a 'mixed background' (or something like that).

Take care and good luck and don't get fed up by people who want to force you to get categorized.

 

[bankside]

Bankside, what do you think the experience of a Racial person becoming post-Racial would be like? I am not necessarily opposed to your take on this. However, I do have a hard time imagining such a transformation. Would it be something like a Male becoming post-Male? Or a Gay becoming post-Gay? Or are those inaccurate comparisons?

Another smaller question: when you say 'critical theory' do you specifically mean 'critical race theory' ala Peggy McIntosh? Or are you genuinely critical of the (enormous) continental literature encompassing the myriad from Adorno to Zizek?

Critical race theory. Critical gender theory. The modern schools of Critical X Theory.

Also, becoming post-racial is just to say we let the boundaries of race slip away in different aspects of our lives. And we recognise that people may try to stop us, or they may try to stop others from joining us in that identity and drag any of us back to "our place." We just support each other and move toward the goal.