How Many Friends Do You Have Outside Your Own Race? - Page 2

Well... I am then.

Cobretti wins the internet.

I have no idea how to answer the question. In terms of appearance, I'm Caucasian, in terms of ethnicity I can lay claim to Jewish, Indonesian and Mongolian (technically Hungarian gypsy but the bloodline suggests it started on the Steppes). And if we're going on technicalities my grandfather was born in Buenos Aires.

So, I guess my answer is all of my friends and none of my friends.

Why not leave it in the hands of the people who feel most passionately about the subject?

The best part about this thread is that banner ad for the interracial romance dating site it brings up.

This question is weird. A number doesn't tell us anything. It's all about context. If you live in surburbia where 99% of people who live in your community are white, not having a diverse group of friends is more than likely. If you live in a diverse city like NYC and have friends only from one race, that's quite another story.

Same here, I've never even thought about it in terms of being interracial, to tell you the truth. My girlfriend's Jewish (blonde and blue-eyed, take THAT shit, white supremacists!) and I've had people do the same things around her that people have done to Dave. I also had to explain to my far-right, Christian parents that Jews worship God as well, just not Jesus.

That was almost as fun as the day that I came out of the closet as agnostic.

Mrs H and I are planning on naming our kidlet Keziah (after my Jewish grandmother)if it's a girl. I've been getting some really weird responses when people ask what nationality it is: "But you're not Jewish, are you?" (By the Hebrew practice of matrilineal descent yes, I am, thank you very much), "Why would you give her a Jewish name?" (said the father of Aaron), "Do you think it's safe to give her a Jewish name?" (I'm not even sure what that means)

Of course the blank looks when we say we're giving her the middle name Scout more then makes up for the stupidity of the questions.

Dave's Jewish? Huh. You learn something new everyday.

Ethnically, yes, but he's not observant. As we don't really know where his father's family is from, we say he's half Jewish and half French.

Yes, Patrick. Yes they are.

Don't tell that to the Klan.

Right on the nose.

Random aside, my roommate while studying abroad was the first Jewish person I really got to know more than casually. Good guy, but I'm 90% sure the program saw my last name and thought "might as well throw the Hebs together".

I don't know if middle eastern jews would necessarily accept that. They would say they're Israeli or persian or whatever the country of origin is.

I'd buy that for a dollar but let's see if I can get it for $0.85.

Anti-Semite!

Be careful, you know how wily those Catholics are!

Far from it. I love people that have quality meat standards.

I think we can all agree that the considerable sufferings of the Jewish people over the millenia were totally worth it since they led to the creation of Hebrew National franks.

And CHUD.

I'd like to teach the world to sing.

Not all of 'em.

Also, I don't really care what race my friends are, since that's not exactly a criterion on which I select my friends. Besides, what are we calling race? Do I have to separate the Serbs and Croats? Or all they all "white"? What about different tribes from Africa? All Africans, or do we classify them by their self-identifying tribal affiliation? What about those of us who are multi-ethnic? How about this: all but about 2 of my friends are immigrants to the USA or first generation Americans.

The Serbs are dirtier.

Oh and, I know a Jewish person, though he is a self hating Jew, bordering on anti-semitic.

I guess I'd assume his last name is Americanized from a German-Jewish name. Much like my "Bushey" got mangled from the French "Boucher"

I'd like to teach the world to sing.

Not all of 'em.

Also, I don't really care what race my friends are, since that's not exactly a criterion on which I select my friends. Besides, what are we calling race? Do I have to separate the Serbs and Croats? Or all they all "white"? What about different tribes from Africa? All Africans, or do we classify them by their self-identifying tribal affiliation? What about those of us who are multi-ethnic? How about this: all but about 2 of my friends are immigrants to the USA or first generation Americans.

I would like to point out that this is, thus far, Patrick's only response in this thread that he started.

He's still trying to master the art of the Faraci bait thread.

Eh, they're more olive than white. With horns.

AY!

Fuckin' crackers didn't want us before, if they think they can have us now they can go fuck themselves!

Growing up in a farming area where 99.9% of all people were white, I still had the random luck that my first two friends were non-white. Courtesy Sesame Street race doesn't even factor into a kid's mind, and doesn't until pretty far into life I don't think, at least where I was people probably didn't even think about it until around puberty.

Except I remember as a kid being convinced that Jews didn't ever swear and had to be the absolute nicest most decent people on the earth as a rule. Why? Because the Nazis wanted to kill them, and if the Nazis were the absolute most evil people alive then the ones they were after technically had to be the absolute goodest. It was like something out of Legend with Jews instead of Unicorns.

I've worked a comparative shitload of different jobs, and at a lot of the jobs I've held in my life I've been one of if not the only white guy working there ranking below a boss position, which gave instances that taught me to angrily think to myself on occasion "fucking white people."

This is one of my favorite work stories. At the preschool I work in, we have a couple of guys named Jesse and Darrius, one of whom is white, and one of whom is black. I'll let you figure out which is which. We decided to ask the kids what the difference between them was. Most of them couldn't come up with an answer, but the best one was "Jesse wears a hat". They honestly don't seem to notice skin color until an adult brings it up.

Do you mean 5 close friends, or just 5 friends period? You seem like a decent, intelligent guy - just seems hard to believe.

Not really sure of the race of some of my friends, but we classify ourselves by our country of origin (except for the Jewish guys & girls).

1 Mexican/Irish (yours truly)
1 Chilean
1 El Salvadorian
1 Cuban
2 Greeks (brother & sister)
2 South Africans (brothers)
2 Puerto Ricans (brothers)
4-5 Jews
8-9 White

My 2nd-grader recently conceived an interest in race. He's full of questions about what the different races are, and where he fits in as a Eurasian. He doesn't apply value judgements to skin color, but he does now factor it into his concept of identity. Apparently, this comes up in conversation with other children, as he told me that one of the boys in his class told him that he was white. He self-identifies as "golden" (our word - he really does have the most beautiful skin tone), and he was trying to figure out whether the boy was right by comparing his skin with my wife's and mine.

Based on my scientific sample of one, I guess that this is a natural part of the developmental process. It's unrealistic to ask anyone to be color blind, just as it's unrealistic to ask anyone to be blind to any obvious identifier. I do think, however, that it's realistic to expect that we withhold value judgements based on race.

Nope, not German, though highly Anglicized. We know that they're from somewhere in Eastern Europe, but that's it.

You know, of all of the broad generalizations one could make about a people one knows nothing about, this is the absolute best. In fact, it's downright adorable. When I asked my mother what Jews were when I was little, she just told me that they didn't believe in Jesus. This didn't help much, as I didn't believe in Jesus and I was pretty sure I wasn't Jewish...

They're from somewhere in Eastern Europe, but I think the name is still of German origin, somehow or another. Pretty much all of the variations on it are Germanic or at least can be Germanic. So there are Germans (even non-Jews) who have basically the same last name as I do.

Basically, my dad has never been good at retaining this stuff or keeping his story consistent. It's also confusing in that my grandfather changed his first name and the spelling of his last name, not for the sake of anglicization (my family had already been in the U.S. for generations, we think), but to get out of some kind of contract.

That is absolutely one of the greatest, coolest kid stories I've ever heard. Completely awesome.

It's sad, but this has to do mostly with nurture. Fortunately I grew up with good parents that weren't racist. Unfortunately, I grew up in white bread Texas. But, with good parenting I was able to make friends with most anyone irregardless of race.

I hearby nominate Stormin for the Frank Cobretti award for class. All in favor say aye.

Aye!

How Many Friends Do You Have Outside Your Own Race?

Loads. As a paki, it's easy for me to do so.
I fucking love crackers. I'm even makin' a baby with one. Hot damn!

Then we are not talking about race, we are talking about colour.

There's nothing like Kosher biltong.

Oh, what a softball you have lobbed out....

Don't I know it! For the record, I never met the guy.

In my closest circle of friends, mostly going back to high school (and a couple of us to elementary school), upon discovering our fluke of demographics they have in the past referred to me as their "Token Goy." I would then commend them on their open-mindedness and cosmopolitan outlook.

Too bad. You would have liked him.

Yeah, pretty much, Frank. Only, you know, put a yarmulke on him.