After the Viet Nam war there were countless children fathered by American GIs, children who belonged nowhere because they were only half Asians, children the US did not particularly want. That was not a new phenomenon. It has happened in every war, and the racism that accompanies these occurrences is far from new. Still when I read a recent BBC Magazine article about the children of black WWII GIs in the UK, I was struck anew with compassion on the one hand as well as with anger on the other. There were 100,000 black GIs in the UK during WWII, obviously and inevitably inviting love affairs. US law however made it difficult for GIs to marry and for black GIs race complicated the issue even further. Inter-racial marriages were illegal and miscegenation laws were on the Continue reading “War Babies and Bi-Racial Children”
Tag: micro-aggression
Political Correctness and Sensitive Speech
One subject that Donald Trump has renewed conversation about is political correctness. He is not for it, and that has pushed many to also challenge it. Political correctness is now often allied with identity politics and that is seen by its critics as a cause of liberals. On the other hand there are those who still believe in the values inherent in free speech and political correctness even if their meaning is not always uniform. Yet, for others still free speech has come to mean being able to say what one wants without regards to notions of political correctness. Free speech came out of the free speech movement of the 60’s which itself ushered in or reinforced the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and LGBT rights. The idea was to leave behind old ways and old patterns which were discriminatory, for example Continue reading “Political Correctness and Sensitive Speech”