 Has anyone noticed that
it has become increasingly difficult to identify models’ ethnicity? There was a
time; politically correct ads went to great lengths to have an equal
distribution of males and females who were black, white, Asian and Hispanic.
Now there are moments when one can’t tell if they are looking at Jessica
Simpson, Beyonce or Shakira. Being ethnically ambiguous is now a bonanza.
Advertisers make no bones about it. They purposely seek out models with
indeterminate features for their shoots.
In a 2003 New York Times
column titled “Generation E.A.: Ethnically Ambiguous,” reporter Ruth La Ferla
quoted Ron Berger, chief executive of New York’s advertising and trend research
company Euro RSCG MVBMS Partners, "Today what's ethnically neutral,
diverse or ambiguous has tremendous appeal both in the mainstream and at the
high end of the marketplace. What is perceived as good, desirable and
successful is often a face whose heritage is hard to pin down."
 
Among the 25-year-old
and younger members of Generation Y, the most diverse population in America’s
history, multiracial is “in”. Demographers point to sustained high levels of
immigration and intermarriage between different groups of those immigrants as
the driving force behind an increasingly multiracial America. “The younger the
age group, the more diverse the population.”
When the results of
Census 2000 were first published, much was written about the seven million
Americans who identified themselves as members of more than one race These
individuals took advantage of the opportunity the Census provided to check more
than one category for race. Another 14 million Hispanics skipped over boxes for
black or white choosing instead “some other race.”
So is America on a
run-away freight train toward Multi-racial Ethnic Ambiguity?
Through continued
immigration and intermarriage—we will make race and culture passé. And since the
models and athletes chosen for the piece are strikingly beautiful and skilled,
the conclusion we are urged to draw is that ethnic ambiguity will create the
ultimate melting pot. This one day may well happen. And perhaps we are indeed
looking into America’s future through our popular culture.
But with the advent of
the Multiracial Category Movement, we have also implicitly announced that we
wish to change our race-consciousness matrix. It appears that we have
frustrated ourselves with limited, unitary race-thinking. If true, then are we
prepared to shift our consciousness from the old matrix to a new one? Yes,
absolutely! For too long, we have practiced the old race paradigm. By thinking
of ourselves through newly “discovered” racial categories, we shift our
race-thinking and we thereby create crises not only for the old logic but also
for new racial practices. Nevertheless, the new racial practices herald a new
logic, proverbial biblical end times for race and perhaps racism. With this new
logic, we will experience some political and social difficulties, and we must
acknowledge that new racial categories may not only liberate but also entrap
us. To avoid this iron cage, we must constantly and mercilessly kill new race
categories just like old ones; we, like water, must learn naturally to spill
over artificially confining banks.
In the meantime, we have enormous potential
lying untapped in our DNA, just waiting to be released. It's also rather poetic
that after every inappropriate racist joke, hurtful cultural slur, destructive
race riot, and horrible ethnic cleansing, the key to so much lies in embracing
our differences. It's ironic and sad that wars are still being fought over
ethnic divides, when everything you could ever wish for your children - health,
beauty, intelligence - is buried inside the cells of your enemy
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