Oh, AND ANOTHER THING!

Here's a riddle:

So let's say my parents are both white, insofar as they are of European descent and have light skin. I'm pretty white, too; but when exposed to the sun in reasonable amounts I turn a decent shade of brown like my dad. Two of my older siblings have a different biological father of some other ethnicity that has darker skin, but the same mom as me. Also, my dad has a daughter with another woman before he meets my mom (she's fairly light-skinned), and their daughter is white as a sheet and moved to Seattle for what might as well be the sake of her skin. Besides myself, my mom and dad have two other boys, same complexion as me but not nearly as handsome.

My older brother then goes and has children with a woman whose mother is darker-skinned and from a South American country and whose father is lighter skinned and of European descent; her own skin is somewhat darker like her mother's. Their five kids all come out fairly light skinned, up until they're exposed to the sun for more than 9 minutes at which point they turn a beautiful shade of brown. No, really -- it's not fair how well they tan.

Meanwhile, my older sister has two daughters with a guy who is of "Mexican" (?) descent. One ends up looking kinda Asian/Mexican, and the other looks pretty white, but like my brother's kids, they tan well too. She also has a kid with a man whose mother was euro-white (as far as I know) and whose father was black by way of African descent (I think). This guy has dark skin, but not REALLY dark -- maybe a couple shades lighter than Barack Obama dark. The son of my sister and this guy comes out more or less a spitting image of his dad; maybe a little bit lighter but that might very well be because he plays Minecraft all the time and doesn't get a whole lot of exposure to the sun. My sister also has a son with a man who's, as far as I know, white, but shockingly tan, all things considered.

Now, the riddle part: What race are they? What race am I?

Click here for the answer.

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Assuming you clicked for the answer, let me just take a moment to say how ridiculously infuriating it is that anyone who doesn't know me or my family should judge any one of us, or anyone anywhere on God's Green Earth (or astronauts -- yes, not even them), simply by the color of their skin or who their parents are or any Goddamned thing like that. 

Sweet Jesus, I really had to get that off of my chest. All that in bold? Yeah, originally it was all in caps because in my brain I was yelling.

Racism is racism, which is just another form of bigotry. It doesn't matter what color the person is who's passing judgment; it doesn't matter what color the person is who's being judged. There is never a good excuse.

Peace and love, people. Peace and love. 

Race, what a goddamned thing.

Anthropologists put it best (From the American Anthropological Association): 

WHEREAS all human beings are members of one species, Homo sapiens, and 

WHEREAS, differentiating species into biologically defined "races" has proven meaningless and unscientific as a way of explaining variation (whether in intelligence or other traits), 

THEREFORE, the American Anthropological Association urges the academy, our political leaders and our communities to affirm, without distraction by mistaken claims of racially determined intelligence, the common stake in assuring equal opportunity, in respecting diversity and in securing a harmonious quality of life for all people.

Everyone has bias about something, and that's normal. So figure out why you have them, and then work on getting over them.

I acknowledge that I'm not perfect and I don't have to be, but I also think that's a poor reason not to try.

Because, “if we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. ... We need not wait to see what others do.” 

Because someone had a dream once about their kids being judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I think that's a damn fine dream to have.