So, is it racist to have the view that mixed-race people are unusually likely to be attractive?

No.

It's not racist, though I don't think it's accurate. Basically mixed-race people are likelier to look "exotic" to people from across the spectrum, but I don't think they're any likelier to be attractive per se.

But go ahead and gawk at the eighth-Breed.

On the other hand, it wouldn't be racist so much as empirically false to hold that white people are unusually likely to be attractive.

On the other hand, it wouldn't be racist so much as empirically false to hold that white people are unusually likely to be attractive.

I feel like this is why we opress everyone else.

I can feel the force of the second argument. On the other hand, it's not as though someone who thinks that mixed race people are extra-hot is thinking of whiteness as the ideal, obviously. (And in this way is different from a sort of Harriet Beecher Stowe the-lighter-the-better racism.)

I don't think it's racist unless it's expressed in a context or as an expression of believing that their unusual hotness overwhelms any other value they may have as people, turning them into objects of desire and nothing else. I think it's a fine line, though, and one that's only visible to one who knows the speaker well enough to frame that statement with what they know of their beliefs otherwise. I think it could easily be overheard and its intent mistaken.

On the other hand, I think my own statement may be annoyingly PC.

Is "finding people of mixed races unusually attractive" exactly like "having an asian fetish"? Or only similar?

You should never discuss racism (or sexism, or most other -isms) with anyone from Berkeley. I'm 100% serious about this comment.

Including Mormonism?

Damn! 7 and 9 are both posted by me.

"Wow, you're very exotic-looking. Was your dad a G.I.?"

Hey, that line works sometimes!

"Wow, you're very exotic-looking. Was your dad a G.I.?"

To which my children would answer "yes".

I think this "mixed-race is exotic" thing is a western thing. In Korea, it, like having a father who was a GI, is something to be ashamed of. I think this is true in most of east Asia.

Is it racist to think that mixed-race = hot? I'm not sure that is exactly the right term. I think it mostly is the result of not being around enough mixed-race people. Experience and exposure do away with most stereotypes, including this one, in my experience.

I've always been envious of a Chinese friend of mine's ability to approach women with the line "I want to make swirl babies with you."

I'm inclined to believe it IS a bit racist, because of that creamy dollop of whiteness effect -- but that it's a venal rather than mortal sin, akin to "Asian people are smart!" and "Black guys are really hung!"

But then I may be too close to Berkeley for my opinion to count here.

So the bi- or multi-racial people in question are necessarily part white?

16 - Not necessarily. Tiger Woods, for example.

Definitely not, which is why the dollop of whiteness thing doesn't work. Tyson Beckford, hot, bi-racial, not white. Ditto Hines Ward and Sonja Sohn.

(Isn't Tiger part white?)

I'm inclined to believe it IS a bit racist, because of that creamy dollop of whiteness effect

Only if we're talking exclusively about mixed-race people who have "white" as part of the mix. If we're talking about all mixed-race people (e.g., Chinese-Navajo, Tibetan-Zulu, etc.), I don't see how it can be racist, inasmuch as we're not talking about any specific race or combination of races.

Tri-pwned.

Can't we just talk about Obama some more?

Obama: hung like a horse.

So, what say ye, Unfoggedtariat?

Don't they have to send you to the Unfogged Re-education Camp for this post?

m, mixed-race, adequate

what should I wear tomorrow?

Something that is easy to take off, I should think.

(Me: but Jewish people are smart! Her: cold skeptical glare.)

Seriously, it drives me nuts when people say you can't say totally obvious things like this, and it drives me more nuts because it's not even consistent with other liberal truisms, like the fact that the environment makes a big difference in people's aptitudes and their expression. I should really calm the fuck down, but you have me itching to blow up Berkeley this morning. Thanks, Alameida.

Back off Berkeley, ogged, you oppressor.

I with you, Ogged! Or I would be, if you weren't so gay.

To be fair, it's just Ashkenazi Jews that have been demonstrated to display higher than average IQs. Sephardic and Oriental, not so much. Brooklyn, I'm not sure.

I'm going to find some old, abandoned pedestrian flags, and start braining people with them.

Ok, pedestrian flags were a stupid idea. I don't think I ever saw any of them--or maybe I did, and had no idea what they were supposed to be. I earned to jaywalk at an early age.

I earned to jaywalk at an early age

How much did that gig pay? Sounds nice...

I'm not going to rest, JM, until Berkeley's town motto becomes "Bi-racial people are hot; our bad."

I was under the impression that there is quite a bit of scientific evidence that mixing between races is advantageous from an evolutionary perspective -- it creates, stronger, healthier humans. If that's the case, the fact that it would also create better looking humans, who would have an evolutionary advantage, would not be racist. But I may be oversimplifying the speed of that sort of selection.

I dunno if it's "racist" in the classical-pejorative-intentional sense, but it's certainly "resulting from the various unattractive racial ideologies afloat in our society". It's also, in my experience, extremely likely to piss off both mixed-race and non-mixed race people of color. More so when they are from racial backgrounds where there's a lot of really unpleasant history to the discussion. I mean, in the US there's a lot more seriously racist stuff in the background when you're talking about being, say, African-American and white than when you're talking about being Southeast Asian and Irish. (Which shows how tricky these categories are for me--what exactly do I mean "Southeast Asian"?)

In my experience, white folks often talk about "mixed race" as this weird guilt-deflection thing: "Well, my grandmother was half Cherokee/Navajo" etc. (It's always Cherokee or Navajo, too--you rarely meet people who talk about their "half-Menominee grandmother".) And I feel like the "hot mixed race people" discussion always threatens to slip over into "I'm uncomfortable with people of color but that bothers me so I'm going to talk about how comfortable I am with mixed race people" or "People who look non-white in a clear-cut way disturb me because they remind me of racial and class realities that I'd rather not face, so I find it more comforting to tell myself Benetton-stories about racial harmony".

All this, of course, sucks for both people of color and mixed-race people.

Also, not everyone who is "mixed race" is visibly mixed race...people tend to assume that if you're mixed (which, to clarify, I am not...some/best friends are/liberal pabulum, though) you look a certain half-and-half way. Which makes things--I am given to understand--really weird in families where one child looks "adorably" Chinese and "black" while the other child just looks "black".

As far as pure aesthetics (if there's any such animal) don't you think it has a lot to do with novelty? I am given to understand that a lot of people like blonds, for example, but I live in the Land of Blond People and I find blondness an almost-instant disqualifier for attractiveness.

Kindly omit that stray comma.

The Lur are noted for their rfusal to exercise any discretion at all in their use of stereotypes.

don't you think it has a lot to do with novelty?

I was wondering the same thing, but I know some homely mixed-race people too.

I know some homely mixed-race people too.

Are they articulate?

Racist!

I'm sure novelty has a lot to do with it, as does context. In Germany, somebody who was half-Czech counted as "exotic-looking," though everybody just looked white as white can be to me.

Except for the Turks.

...And what I meant to expand upon and forgot: the discussion has a lot to do with the class/race position of the discussant. For instance, I think people like me (white, left-but-tending-to-slide-back-into-liberal-if-I-don't-watch-it) attach all these utopian ideas to mixed race people: "Ooh, when we defeat racism everyone will be attractively light brown with interesting hair la la la....", which is kind of creepy, conveying as it does the idea that people's skin color is some kind of political indicator. Or like those ads for various high-tech/consulting/investment/global-pillaging companies which use certain kinds of racially ambigious images to signal that they are modern, forward-thinking and so on. (Often while they secretly pursue policies that destroy indigenous communities and impoverish various brown people world-wide, but that's another matter.)

It occurs to me that the "dollup of creamy whiteness" idea can be supplemented by the horrid "ooh, Chinese babies are so cute!" idea--that is, middle class white folks tend to think that brown folks who are part East Asian are cute, but not so much if someone is, say, of a very dark-skinned South Asian minority, or Mexican and African-American, or something. it has to do, I think, with the way we tend to think of race and race-plus-gender...like when I flew Singapore Air and overheard the white ladies behind me marvelling that the women in Singapore were so pretty but the men were so ugly, and how could that be? (I was younger and more nervous then; today I would have said something, probably something both rude and noisy.)

the women in Singapore were so pretty but the men were so ugly

But this is totally true. I know there have been comments here saying the same thing about other countries.

I agree with 40.

What's sexual and attractive is deeply rooted in unresolved sources of tension. In the United States, nothing is dicier than race issues. Hence race is going to be a source of spiciness.

It's an over-simplification to say "mix-raced folks are sexylicious!" is or isn't racist. It is completely inextricable from our culture's messy unresolved relations to racial differences.

you have me itching to blow up Berkeley this morning

How is this different from every morning, ogged? It's really a miracle that given the Berkeley exposure you have you're not a member of a right wing terrorist group.

You'll all be happy to know that a friend recently visiting from Ukraine (a country that fits the #43 description) told me she loved visiting the U.S. because American are so much better looking.

...And, to post way more than is polite, well, I'm fairly homely white lady, or at least I'm not exactly known for my beauty, but when I lived in China I got lots and lots of compliments and questions on my lovely skin and hair, and compliments that made it obvious that people really did envy my looks. What did I do to make my skin so clear? How did I get my hair to be that color? Was it natural? Could I recommend any shampoo? Why didn't I grow it out, since it was so pretty?

I wish I could believe that this is because pudgy, big-nosed white folks of Scandinavian descent are really more likely to be, you know, hot, but I just can't make myself buy it.

I only go to Berkeley for good Indian food these days.

Ok seriously, there's a lot to like about Berkeley, and the comfortable race-mixing is high on the list, but sentiments like the one's expressed by Alameida's friend...grrr.

This reminds me of my sweet, earnestly liberal friend who couldn't make himself find the nice Chinese boy he was dating attractive and was convinced this made him a horrible racist. Why can't we keep our psycho-sexual guilt nicely separate from our aesthetics?

I don't think Americans are any worse about this stuff than people from other countries. In Europe whities like me get the "no, where is your family really from" conversation all the time, and being part, say, Danish and part Irish counts as "mixed-race." Whereas in the US, if whities start musing about their great-grandfather from Denmark and their great-great-grandmother who probably came over from Ireland, let's face it, most people will remember that they need another drink.

43: See, Ogged, I've heard lots of "the women are so pretty but the men are so ugly" stuff about various countries (and really, races, since it is a racial statement--), and it's nonsense (or really, subjective/culturally determined).

The women on the plane really meant "We think women should be delicate and slender and deferential, just like the women were when they were our waitresses and salesclerks in Singapore, but we think that men should be larger and stronger than us and be dominant, which the men clerking and driving buses in Singapore were not, both because of phenotype and because they had to be deferential because they were working for tourist dollars." Also, these women meant, "We think Asian women are exotic delicate flowers, are more "feminine" than white women can ever be, know exotic sexual tricks, can lure men away from their loving white wives, etc, and we envy this facility, which we believe is natural rather than the result of colonialism."

Also, a data point: I, a woman who is attracted to (some) men, am never attracted to your basic moosey-white-guy-with-pecs (or indeed, big hulking men with pecs generally...ish!). Usually when people say "but the men are so ugly" or "but the women aren't very feminine" I am happy, because it's fairly likely that I'm going to meet some folks I'll find attractive. So at the very least, "all the men are so ugly" only in some kind of subjective sense.

Now I am going to do my paid work for a while.

49, in turn, invites an allusion to Storytelling: "don't be racist! don't be racist!"

Isn't attractiveness the joker in the deck? It seems not to be positively correlated with virtues of any other kind, and being attracted to someone doesn't necessarily involve respect or friendship or anything other than desire.

And individual attraction kinks are often even more senseless than the statistical average attraction tendencies.

So there's nothing more senseless about have racial attraction kinks than there is about having a kink for girls who giggle or guys who do James Dean poses.

This leads in directly to my usual sermon.

Oh, I so agree, ogged. I have never lived, and probably will never live, anywhere but in the bluest heart of urban cosmopolitanism. It's home to me. But there is something deeply absurd about failing to acknowledge steroetypes that are obviously true (especially if they are true and positive). I would argue also that it is harmful: denying obviously true sterotypes (be they racial, religious, or whatever) makes anti-racism seem bankrupt and gives malign racism of the "let's not judge indviduals on their merits" variety an intellectual foothold.

Related: when my family was (as per usual) having dinner in a chinese restaurant on Xmas day, my sister paused, looked wild-eyed around the room, and exclaimed "is there a doctor in the house?" Any doctrine that prevents that joke is suspect.

Ya see, JM, it turns out that my ancestors that I thought were Dutch actually were Scottish refugees from the Jacobite rebellion who lived in Holland for two or three generations......

Emerson, if you wrote a book of your collected wisdom, it would be a kind of masterpiece.

I think that the position in this is rather like the position on employing servants; ie, it's not like you're being really evil, but people who have occasion to think about it a lot would probably consider it a bit clueless.

I seem to remember that I used this analogy in one of the interminable "fat chicks" threads, so I will repeat old material with a new twist and conclude that saying that you love the wonderful and exotic way that black people look and isn't it great, is like telling a fat chick that you dig fat chicks. It's all sort of nice and you're probably trying to help, but the implicit message is that they have some underlying duty to give a fuck what white people think they look like.

52: Inviting allusions to Storytelling, or any Todd Solondz picture, makes me want to crawl back into bed and stay there.

by the way, the "truth" of the "mixed race people are so good looking" is likely to be every bit as illusory as the "Jewish people are smart" theory (christ, go to Israel some time if you want to disprove this). It is surely the case that if you've got a face like a slapped arse, nobody is ever going to be interested in finding out about your Cherokee grandmother.

when my family was (as per usual) having dinner in a chinese restaurant on Xmas day

That's such a smart thing to do.

60 WINS

Okay, I'm not going to do my paid work. At least, not yet.

Yeah, attractiveness is tricky. And it's usually not changeable about a specific person at a specific time--you can't just tell yourself that you find your Chinese boyfriend attractive and have it happen.

But attractiveness isn't immutable either--I mean, I had a crush on the cutest little twelve-year-old boy back when I was twelve, and yet I'm not, mercifully, attracted to twelve-year-olds now.

When you meet a variety of people and spend time with them, the kinds of people you find attractive usually shifts, if only because those are the people who are available. That's not to say that you can find any individual attractive, but that really strong categorial statements about the eternal verities of attractiveness don't hold up really well.

Unless, of course, you have a lot invested, consciously or unconsciously, in finding only certain types of people attractive. I'm always a little skeptical about folks who say they're only ever attracted to a very narrow range of people. "Mostly I'm attracted to"...fine, plausible. "I've never found any member of X category attractive"...tends to suggest to me "...because if I were even once attracted to someone older/younger/fatter/thinner/of my gender/of another race then I could not hold together my fragile sense of myself as appropriately masculine/feminine/successful/popular."

Dsquared's comment leads directly to a common stereotype which seems to be true: black guys like fat chicks (specifically big butts). Anecdotally this has been verified by at least one hiphop song, direct questioning of two black guys I know and three large women I know, and my sister, who is not fat but who by white standards could stand to be about 10 lbs. less bootylicious.

if you've got a face like a slapped arse, nobody is ever going to be interested in finding out about your Cherokee grandmother

So right. When multi-racial people are attractive, it's often in a "wow, what is that person" way, and when not, you just don't ask.

Thanks, JD.

I think the correct answer here is mixed-race people are more likely to have an odd mixture of features that one would find striking. This is not the same as "all mixed-race people are teh hot."

yet I'm not... attracted to twelve-year-olds now

The voice of denial.

Maybe it's like the kind of boredom when you've been to every restaurant so you have to start going to French-Vietnamese or Sino-Turkish fusion restaurants in order to get your buzz. (Because I know that the Unfoggedateriat, sort of like Warren Beatty or jack Nicholson, has seen it all).

Standpipe, superb.

Paradoxically, fusion cuisine is almost always worse than pure-ethnic cuisine.

Standpipe, superb.

I'm convinced it's the old handle.

I guess what I really react badly to is "stereotypes and generalizations are evil." They're usually a pretty good first cut. On these particular topics, I guess I'd say that it sure seems like multi-racial kids are more likely to look good than uni-racial kids, but it's hardly an iron law, and that, in America, Jews are more likely to be educated and successful than the rest of us--isn't this latter just a fact?

fusion cuisine is almost always worse than pure-ethnic cuisine

Isn't the fabulous Elephant Walk just down the street from you?

I can't believe baa's even wrong on culinary matters.

Ah! But Elephant Walk is less fusion than a happy coexistence of two separate menus in one restuarant. I am all for fish sauce, and all for pate. I am less saguince about pate with fish sauce.

70 is making me realize that mixed-race people are way less likely to be authentic than are people of one race.

Isn't the professoriate about five or six times more Jewish than the US population? Seriously, I grew up on Long Island, and work feels like home. Also, that anyone disputes baa on fusion cuisine astounds me. Jazz, food...is "fusion" ever an indicator of anything but evil?

Drymala, you're on drugs. The word "fusion" in a restaurant description is practically a blinking neon sign reading "overpriced new american hodgepodge"

Am I the only New Yorker in the room? The good food here is all fusion.

a happy coexistence of two separate menus

That's a fair point. I do think you're wrong though, insofar as I don't think you can tell me what the cuisine at the French Laundry or Alinea is, in a "pure-ethnic" sense.

Holy shit, he was right.

77 - Nuclear fusion isn't evil.

Whoa, let's distinguish between fusion food, which can be great, and restaurants that advertise themselves as "fusion," which generally suck.

Many South American cuisines are fusions (like Peruvian, Cuban, Dominican,...) and I love 'm.

French-Vietnamese is awesome, although I have never been in a French-Vietnamese that tried to pass off pâté with fish sauce as fusion food.

Holy shit, he was right.

Wow.

A French-Vietnamese restaurant would not be a "fusion" restaurant, since Vietnamese cooking is heavily influenced by France anyway. The Sugar Club was an excellent fusion restaurant. The trouble with fusion cooking as with jazz-rock fusion, is that you basically have to be John McLaughlin to pull it off.

On the direct subject of the post, I think 64 and 66 have it -- if you're pretty and multiracial, you look prettier because you're unusual looking. I have a Scottish/Chinese friend who stops traffic, and it's because she's not only attractive but also odd looking (for some reason, the Chinese doesn't show in an easy-to-figure-out way, except every so often when the light hits her right. Mostly she looks like an attractive but peculiar looking white woman. Although she says that Chinese people always know she's Chinese). She could be just as pretty if she were all white, but people wouldn't find her appearance as interesting.

I guess what I really react badly to is "stereotypes and generalizations are evil." They're usually a pretty good first cut.

Evil? I wouldn't say that for something that's usually not maliciously intended. But you're wrong about they're being a useful first cut -- what you end up doing is remembering the data that confirms them, and discarding the data that doesn't, and it turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Every Jewish doctor you meet confirms the stereotype, and every Jewish sanitation worker you don't remember.

I'm not claiming there's no statistical validity to any of them -- of course there is. But it's not really a useful way to organize your thinking about people.

Sino-Turkish cuisine isn't really fusion either, since you have the Uighurs over there. But two distinctly different styles are merged in both cases. ("Mongolian barbeque" is Sino-Mongol fusion; Mongol food is quite different, and mostly worse.)

I'd say that first-generation fusion is probably pretty ad, but after a few generations of work it becomes good.

I'm not claiming there's no statistical validity to any of them -- of course there is. But it's not really a useful way to organize your thinking about people.

I wrote and then deleted a long and tedious comment on this, which is just as well because LizardBreath has just said it much better.

Also: Malaysian cuisine is tops on my list and is a fusion.

Basically, any place once colonized by the French is going to have some brilliant food.

I submit that stereotypes are a reasonbale way to organize your thinking about ethnic restaurants.

Every Jewish doctor you meet confirms the stereotype, and every Jewish sanitation worker you don't remember.

Yeah, thought so.

I don't buy the "it's just exoticism" thing. Something like half of all the kids running around this place are mixtures of one sort or another, and yes, an awful lot of them are damn good-looking kids (and not just my own!).

93: Fair enough. It's not an accident that no one here has ever been to a Samoan restaurant.

25: No blowing up Berkeley, because then I wouldn't have anywhere to eat.

Basically, any place once colonized by the French is going to have some brilliant food

apart from England, presumably.

The Norman yoke: not all bad!

98: Not anywhere in Canada either.

98: Not anywhere in Canada either.

Come on, Montreal has good food, and it's not all supplied by the ethnics.

I meant the indigenous Canadian cuisine.

88 - At a personal level, no. It's not any more useful to assume a Jewish person must be smart than it is to date someone multiracial because you imagine they must be attractive.

But if the point is to draw some conclusion, then generalizations, and especially statistically valid ones, could be a good way to think about things. Say we find that Jewish people tend to be smart, and we suspect that might be because Jewish parents tend to emphasize reading at an early age (I have no idea whether that's even remotely true). Then, organizing one's thoughts around a preconceived notion will have helped us identify some valuable piece of knowledge.

To the extent that they reveal some underlying truth, stereotypes can be valuable. To the extent that they don't, they're terrible, terrible things.

I definitely subscribe to the mix is hotter school.

Which is why I also subscribe to the line (I think it was by George Carlin) that we should all keep fucking until we're all the same colour - not only because it would promote racial integration, but because it would produce one damn hot race...

A lot also depends on the flexibility of the stereotype and the person who believes it. If it gets in the way of your interactions with individuals, that's clearly bad; ditto if you're unwilling to revise or stop believing it in the face of evidence. But if you're trying to market a magazine to black guys and keep putting boy-hipped models on the cover, that's also bad.

"I meant the indigenous Canadian cuisine."

Even buttertarts? Beavertails? Sorry, you're right - I got nothing...but we do have a multicultural society where great ethnic restaurants are the norm.

per Dagger Aleph, Canada has the best snack food.

Well, sure. There's also an innateness issue -- I'd say that stereotypes about what Group X just naturally are like are much more of a problem than explicitly cultural stereotypes.

I'm not claiming there's no statistical validity to any of them -- of course there is. But it's not really a useful way to organize your thinking about people.

And it can be hurtful -- for instance, when a teacher's assumption that "Asian kids are good at math" precludes her from noticing the Chinese kid in the corner who is, actually, really struggling.

indigenous Canadian cuisine

Nanaimo Bars!

Re: 46
"You'll all be happy to know that a friend recently visiting from Ukraine (a country that fits the #43 description) told me she loved visiting the U.S. because American are so much better looking."

Damn - that would have been nice to know two years ago, when I was in Ukraine for the election. Walking around Kiev for a couple days is enough give you whiplash, watching the smorgasborg of hot Ukrainian women walking by...and to think I might have been exotic looking to *them*? (although I am Canadian)

A Google of "Jewish loggers" and "Jewish lumberjacks" pulls up some interesting stuff. But these were smart, articulate, neurotic loggers and lumberjacks.

Aren't Ukrainians mostly Canadian?

I've a Ukrainian-Canadian aunt.

112: They were all great shots and spent money freely. Sorry, that's Jewish cowboys.

But there is good food in England somewhere. I'm sure of it. Just don't ask where.

My initial inclination was to agree that "yes, of course, people of mixed racial/ethnic background tend to be hotter, duh." However, upon further thought, that doesn't make any sense. Essentially any African American is in some sense of mixed race, in that some of their ancestors were African slaves and some were European rapists. Furthermore, almost all hispanics have some combination of African, (Native) American, and European heritage. Thus, how can it possibly be true that having a hispanic parent and a black parent makes you hot because you're mixed race, but having two hispanic parents doesn't?

In conclusion, I think that LB is right (which is a good rule of thumb anyway) and it's just that people who are hot and unusual looking are extra-hot. Thus people of mixed race seem hotter, just because there are fewer people who look like them.

117: not to nitpick, but there are many black hispanics (cf., much of Cuba).

Essentially any African American is in some sense of mixed race, in that some of their ancestors were African slaves and some were European rapists.

Really? I thought that was more the exception than the rule, and that most slave masters were more repulsed than excited by the idea of impregnating their slaves. Slavery didn't happen for THAT many generations in America.

Am I wrong?

Wow. Just because a lot of ev-psych people are weirdo eugenicists and everyone is a unique flower doesn't mean that it's morally or politically incorrect to admit that mixed-race people are unusually likely to be attractive. And the insidious thing about living near Berkeley is that it makes one feel like one ought to join a right-wing terrorist brigade, but it skews one's perspective of what is considered extreme right wing.

Oh, and also I think that there might be a first name above that should be changed to "Alameida".

Doesn't the first paragraph of 117 require us to assume that purebred whiteys aren't, on average, less attractive than everyone else?

88

"I'm not claiming there's no statistical validity to any of them -- of course there is. But it's not really a useful way to organize your thinking about people."

Nature appears to disagree or we would have evolved differently.

Hey are the Alameidettes going to be at the party?

I agree with 117; I think it just who is exotic looking.

James, that argument proves rather too much.

118: Yes, of course, Haiti, Dominican, Brazil. "Almost all," should definitely have been "most." There are also completely European descended Hispanics from Argentina and other places. But those facts are totally irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make, which concerns only looks not country of origin.

Is there any usable word for "Hispanic, but not white or black?" Probably not.

119

The average black American is about 20% white and it is rare for a black American (who is not from a family which recently immigrated) not to have some white ancestry.

126 -- Mexican?

A weird coincidence. I read this post just a few minutes before reading *this* one, with no linkage. Anyway, the OB post linked to this interesting perspective on stereotypes by a Libertarian.

(Or more seriously, Mestizo I think is the word you're looking for.)

118: Interestingly, blacks seem to be much less racially distinct and more intermixed in lots of the Latino world than they are here.

126: I was just thinking of adding a disclaimer that my nitpick did not detract from your broader point. I do tend to use "latino" in lieu of "hispanic," as the latter term exludes non-Spanish speakers while technically lumping in Spaniards. This doesn't help clarify the race issue, of course.

124: You people have just sent me off fruitlessly Googling for a decent picture of a random collection of local kids to show you how wrong you are. But trust me, you are.

131 cont.: Also, the indian vs. European ancestry is so mixed that it's basically one big continuum now, at least in Mexico. But that still doesn't prevent ancestry from being roughly proportional to class.

I have been told that Mexico has a very complex system of defining racial groups of various types and dilutions -- it's not homogenized.

I don't understand 133. Who is wrong about what, DaveL?

135: Right. Which doesn't contradict 134, right?

136: I'm arguing that those who contend that mixed-race people just seem more attractive because they're exotic are mistaken because the generalization holds up pretty well in an environment in which mixed is very common.

Ah. Where are you?

(Besides at "b.com" I mean)

RE 119 and 127

This paper breaks down the percentages of white genetic contributions to African-Americans. It also apparently (I don't fully understand that part) provides evidence that that the white contributions were predominantly from white males.

139: I think DaveL is in Hawaii.

142: yes.

I have heard "hybrid vigor" given as a genetic reason why mixed race people are hot. I just don't buy it given that there is no stereotype that Hispanics are hot.

This is new to me though:

One study suggests that hybrid vigor may be associated with increased intelligence in humans. Nagoshi and Johnson (1986) found that children of Japanese-Caucasian cross-ethnic unions scored .26 SD higher on several cognitive tests than those from within-ethnic families, despite having virtually identical parental educational and occupational backgrounds (p. 204). The increase in scores tended to be higher on cognitive tests that were more g-loaded, suggesting that hybrid vigor improves g. To become more reliable, the study would have to match the intelligence averages of the parents as well as compute the intelligence scores of their children. Mingroni (2004) has argued that heterosis may be partially responsible for the Flynn effect.

But DaveL (watch as I battle a stereotype with a stereotype) asian children are unusually cute, and insofar as kids look kinda asian, they're attractive. As they get older, doesn't it level out quite a bit? Are the local adults also unusually attractive?

Until our cultural environment is significantly more accepting of mixed-race couples, I wouldn't take any statistical evidence of "hybrid vigor" correlating with intelligence seriously.

And your link in 141 explains how the geneticists were able to trace which gender contributed what race: there are race-related markers on various bits of inherited Y and X chromosomes.

142,3 -- Oh yeah, I remember now.

ogged, children in general are pretty cute until they hit about six years old.

No, the cutoff is more like 12.

Are the local adults also unusually attractive?

I was sticking to the kids to try to separate "attractive" from "sexy," but yes, I think the generalization also holds up pretty well for the adults.

148, 149: And then they're hot from 14 until 20 or so, and then it's just nasty old crone from there to the grave.

144: there's not? Even once you account for being poor being very definitely not hot?

146: what's the connection between tolerance of mixed-race couples (which seems reasonably high, at least for some pairings) and the seriousness with which one should take asserted correlations?

"Just because the holocaust happened doesn't mean we can't talk about how people are different."

- a friend of mine once said.

I'm really not sure about this guy, but the paper itself doesn't seem too bad. He argues that stereotypes are not in fact rigidly held, that they're generally valid, and that they are not the cause of (or an instance of) racism.

Perhaps the earliest research study supporting a view of stereotyping similar to that advocated in the present paper was by Bayton, McAlister & Hamer (1956). These authors described a person to students simply as "black" and got the usual stereotypes back: "dirty", "lazy" etc. They then modified the description to "educated black" and instantly got greatly changed responses. The educated black was in fact described in terms very similar to an educated white. So we see that, far from being rigidly held beliefs that stand in the way of recognition of individual variation, stereotypes are in fact supremely flexible and responsive to new information.

I would suggest that instead of condemning stereotyping, we identify the unusual situations in when it fails (i.e. the stereotypes are truly not representative) and condemn those. Also, to identify what particularly leads to racial animosity.

pdf23ds, I had a very visceral reaction to that excerpt. I read it that adding the word "educated" yields the whole host of "credit to the race" crap, and is equally problematic.

"Hispanic" is the usual term around here.

153.-- My thought are a bit muddled on this one, perhaps, but I'd start by questioning the premise that tolerance is high for mixed-race couples. When that study in 144 was done (1986), I don't think tolerance was all that perfect.

Anyway, my point was sort of that genetic patterns are get expressed or not based on a lot of social and cultural stuff, and in this race-structured society, a lot of that stuff is going to be racist or reactive to racism.

And that the phrase "hybrid vigor" applied to humans makes me nervous.

157: Yeah, teo, but that's in that zany New Mexico.

Zany for sure. Right now it's snowing like a motherfucker.

156: I had the same reaction, but then I couldn't figure out how to defend it.

"genetic patterns are get expressed or not based on a lot of social and cultural stuff"

I *think* this is shorthand for "a lot of racially associated traits actually correlate only weakly or moderately with genotype, and are influenced more by the culture associated by the racial group". But the phrasing obscures the fact that genes either get expressed or not based on transcription factors, and the protein products that modify and specialize the cellular function are several complexity levels removed from both the macro phenotype and environmental factors. It also obscures the fact that environment--the variation in environment conditions within a population--contributes almost nothing to the expression of the vast majority of genes. Having two arms, two legs, and two functioning eyes, I can attest to this personally. Also, it obscures the fact that, even among racially associated traits, a lot of them are almost perfectly correlated with genotype, like skin, hair, and eye color.

I don't mean to say that you're contradicting the above, but I do mean to say that your phrasing leaves me wondering whether you understand the above. And it seems to me like that sort of elision/vagueness is a major complaint about leftists talking about genetics.

But we're not talking about having arms, we're talking about intelligence, which seems to be measurably affected by environement and which is measured in ways that are themselves very much socially conditioned.

pdf23ds, I'm certainly not a geneticist, and my phrasing was, admittedly, very imprecise. I hadn't intended to refer to the visible stuff like arms and eye color and whatnot, but to the more subtle things like intelligence, aggressiveness, self-reliance, curiosity, introvertedness, etc. My sister, who is a geneticist, has explained to me (over and over again, it sometimes feels) that these qualities usually have a genetic background but are reinforced or suppressed or rechannelled during a child's raising.

(I may still not be making myself clear; a fucking mouse just ran across my fucking toes in my goddamned bedroom.)

I am in a mixed-race marriage and my half-sister is of mixed-race as well. (Chinese/White, here; I'm the Chinese one.)

I was once at a Chinese society dinner for 'successful high school graduates'. The room was full of Chinese kids; the 2 girls who were half-Chinese and white? Smokin' hot. Exoticism? Maybe.

But yes, I have noticed this. No, it's not racist. Is it an extra burden in life? Yes, I think so. Sometimes I feel sorry for my sister that she's 'in limbo': I feel she will never be truly accepted by either identity group. That's why I feel we should get rid of them. (Fat chance.)

163: I'm skeptical of assertions that IQ tests are so useless that the correlations observed in results can be explained entirely by the test targeting that social/racial group and by differences in upbringing and education, but I don't know enough to defend my hunch. And I'm impatient with any argument that IQ tests don't measure some platonic ideal of intelligence. The fact is, they do a pretty good job of measuring all sorts of success, which is what we mean colloquially by "intelligence" anyway. And if you don't like the word you don't have to use it, but the implications (contestable as they are) remain.

I don't mean to contest that upbringing has a large impact on intelligence. But "hybrid vigor" is an average over many people, which means you have to demonstrate a systematic difference in the upbringing of mixed-race people that leads to a better developed intelligence in order for that to account for the difference. Which is plausible--I would imagine that middle-class and higher people have more exposure to diversity (having more free time and being less often confined to ghettos) and thus more opportunity to marry interracially. On the other hand, white flight suburbs.

It's possible, pdf. That study linked in 144 didn't seem like much in the way of evidence towards proving the hybrid vigor in humans hypothesis, though; it didn't measure across different racial admixtures, and it didn't measure the parents' intelligence. Or control for class, seemingly.

Yeah, I actually have no opinions on hybrid vigor in particular. It was just the more general point I wanted to make.

Yeah, I actually have no opinions on hybrid vigor in particular.

Well, you should, the number of people still buying purebreds from breeders instead of lovable, healthy mutts from a pound is a travesty.

the number of people still buying purebreds from breeders instead of lovable, healthy mutts from a pound is a travesty.

As noted above, this makes perfect sense if they're eating them.

144, (and 166): I will not assert that all IQ correlations are useless, but I will assert that anyone who talks about Spearman's g and how some tests are g-loaded (as the link in 144 does) is not worth listening to. You will not get anywhere using the antiquated language of the old racist IQ testers and their strange hypotheses about g measuring the amount of energy or magic juice in the brain.

171: I think I already covered that argument with "And I'm impatient with any argument that IQ tests don't measure some platonic ideal of intelligence."

Rob, why do you regard the mention of 'g' as a marker of a bogus argument? My understanding was that there is substantial support (and in recent, not antiquated literature) for the existence of a general factor. This is nothing like a field I know closely, I admit.

173: I think the counterargument Rob's alluding to is that there's no evidence that there is any one faculty of mind, or one controlling factor, that constitutes g. There's even a paper showing how, a multiplicative interaction between n mental faculties and overall mental ability would have all the same external characteristics. But I don't espouse any sort of religious veneration of g as an entity, because I don't need to. G, even simply as a culturally bound measure of performance on certain culturally valued tasks, is still more than relevant enough, considering how evidently central those tasks are for success in society (because g correlates so strongly with professional accomplishment).

In other words, some people say (and more used to say) that there's some core to intelligence that's possible to measure. So other people, like Rob, came along and said "that's ridiculous--the brain is a huge collection of co-evolved modules, mostly to solve specific problems". And then other people said "well, it's a fuzzy, knotty core, but still a core".

Let me know if I mischaracterize you, Rob.

144: While there may not be a stereotype that Hispanics are hot, they are apparently overrepresented in the ranks of hot women.

I've heard a Latina = hot stereotype, which is almost the same thing. Or maybe it's a Latina = slut stereotype. I'm not familiar with it enough to say, or to say whether it's a US thing or is held by latinos themselves.

176: By "US" I presume you mean "Anglo."

(Still snowing.)

I've heard a Latina = hot stereotype, which is almost the same thing. Or maybe it's a Latina = slut stereotype.

Some guys of course dig the Latina look, but the Latina stererotype is more "uninhibited in the sack" or "likes to fuck" rather than inherently good looking. Probably has it's roots in the tendency for whitey to characterize brown people as having poor control over their urges.

That being said, in my experience there's a lot of Latinas who seem to embrace the "we're hot in bed" thing.

To me the stereotype is that Latinas are passionate and enthusiastic, not that they're promiscuous (Latino families are often very strict about such things). This is also thought of Latinos ("Fernando"). There's a matching stereotype of Nordics as stiff and cold. I think that there's some truth in both stereotypes, and a fair proportion of Latinos/as and Teutons agree.

Prostitution, e.g. Tijuana, skews the lower reaches of American public opinion on this questions.

I happen to think that stereotypically East Asian women are especially attractive, which makes me a pervert or at least a sexist in the eyes of many.

"not that they're promiscuous (Latino families are often very strict about such things)"

Likewise Catholic schoolgirls.

Okay, here we go: First of all, I'm writing from the city that is consistently ranked second (after the Bay Area) in acceptance of interracial relationships. Snelling Ave., long a "haven" for interracial couples (due to real estate agents' steering practices) is just down the street. Looking over my high school yearbook this evening, I found that the interracial kids were not overrepresented in the hotness category, and, in fact, some of them were just as goofy-looking as me.

What this comes down to, as mentioned above, is that all of this is cultural. And when I say cultural, I mean "deeply ingrained in our culture." Think about all the words we have to describe the quality of belonging to more than one race, or the blurring of racial boundaries: mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, mestizo, metis, half-and-half, high yellow, "good hair", one-drop-of-black-blood, "tragic mulatto", etc. Many of them are offensive, yes, but what's more significant I think is that many of them are fairly explicit in the way they delineate a hierarchy of race. It's not as though these conversations can somehow occur outside the boundaries of our shared burden of racism and race hatred. I note, for instance, that people are bandying the term "exotic" around pretty freely here. Let's break that down: What exactly do you mean when you say "exotic"? I don't think it's quite as simple as some people seem to believe.

Bringing it back home: One of the reasons I'm dubious about this part of the discourse on race is that every day on the bus I see plenty of people who are obviously not imbued with white-skin privilege, but are, simultaneously not obviously of a particular race. There are plenty of Native people in my community who could probably pass for some East Asian nationality, plenty of recent immigrants from Mexico and South and Central America who could be Native, non-Hispanic people of mixed race who could be supposed to be Latino, recent immigrants from Africa who don't look much different from African-American people whose families have been here for 10 generations, etc. I'm doubtful that many of these folx would pass the Unfogged hottness test though, since they are by and large working class, and some of those who have immigrated recently are coming from pretty desperate circumstances in the countries of their birth, which doesn't often lead to model-like good looks.

Speaking of models, I'm a bit surprised too that no one has brought up the fetish for biracial models (and occasionally actors) that has been ascendant these last 6 or 8 years, particularly those individuals who have very light skin, freckles and curly red hair. It seems like that specific phenotype is quite popular with casting directors, even though you don't see a great many other people who are obviously of mixed race in fashion spreads and sitcoms.

I dunno, I guess I just have very little patience with arguments which try so hard to assign some non-cultural explanation to phenomena like erotic appreciation that are so clearly dependent on the cultural constructs of race, gender and class that so heavily determine other aspects of our lives. Especially when those arguments veer increasingly close to ideologically toxic beliefs left over from the golden age of eugenics.

"phenomena like erotic appreciation that are so clearly dependent on the cultural constructs of race, gender and class"

Via Amber's link above, this:

Although the high level of agreement within cultures may simply reflect the success of Western media in disseminating particular ideals of beauty, cross-cultural research suggests that shared ideals of beauty are not dependent on media images.

...

Cross-cultural studies have been done with people in Australia, Austria, England, China, India, Japan, Korea, Scotland, and the United States. All show that there is significant agreement among people of different races and different cultures about which faces they consider beautiful, although agreement is stronger for faces of the same race as the perceiver.

Also,

They presented males from 4 ethnic-cultural groups in 13 countries with Asian, black, Hispanic, and white female faces. The average correlation between racial groups in their rating of attractiveness was r = .93, exposure to Western media had no influence on the ratings. Males in all cultures were attracted to female faces displaying large eyes, small noses, high cheekbones, small chin and a large smile; body shape preferences did differ though with black males preferring 'heavier' bodies.

body shape preferences did differ though with black males preferring 'heavier' bodies.

It's all about the booty.

Unrelated data points:

A. Cultures definitely have different norms regarding display. This may explain a lot of latina representation. And maybe the difference in average attractiveness -- if one can imagine such a thing -- between Georgia and New Jersey.

B. Everyone I know who's ever been to Copenhagen tells me that there are more beautiful women there than anywhere else.

C. I have a Chinese friend who tells me that partial Chinese ancestry makes anyone better looking. Dean Cain is the poster child for this, she says.

D. There are, and have long been, more Navajos and Cherokees than anyone else. There are other demographics at work, but this is likely a part of it.

E. Everyone is a mix. That Cherokee great-grandmother? Her great grandfather was a Creek. And his wife was Tuscarora. Irish people have a mix of Viking, Sicilians some Cathaginian. Many Umyyads melted into Spain -- it's claimed (and I suppose this Spanish history is the truth behind the claim) that GWB is a descendant of Mohammed. I don't find him (the latter) particularly attractive.

The 183 link enumerates a cherry-picked list of traits for which crosscultural agreement was found. I'd like to see more sorting of traits into the universal and the particular. The argument so far is is terribly polemical and not conducive to a nuanced approach.

I doubt that anyone on earth is unaware of Western standards of beauty or unaffected by them, and very few are not aware of Western dominance. (Direct contact to western media isn't necessary, since loal media people worldwide are all in touh with western media.) So some of the universalism of preference can be a result of that universal. My guess is that Japanese and Chinese preferences are different now than they were 300 years ago, and this should be doumentable.

The former. I have no readily recollection of the appearance of Mohammed.

185 D: Not in most of the US. Navaho may be a real function of Navaho numbers, but the "Cherokee princess" thing is a cultural weirdness.

There are, and have long been, more Navajos and Cherokees than anyone else. There are other demographics at work, but this is likely a part of it.

True, but the Cherokee stuff in particular is pretty dubious. According to the 2000 census there are over 700,000 Cherokees in this country, by far the largest tribe; I'm pretty sure a substantial portion of those are people whose grandmothers were Cherokee princesses.

For comparison, there are about 300,000 Navajos.

Cherokee is just what people pull out of their ass when they want to claim some native blood. I just assume they're all lying or deluded.

Yep.

182: Yeah, but that's exactly what I'm talking about. There may indeed be some easily quantifiable attributes of physical beauty that are not culturally specific, but when we say someone is "hott", we're not usually responding to a carefully selected group of images while some creepy anthropologist is breathing down our necks. We're talking about people we see in the real world, or in the media, and those people are wearing clothes (or not), they've got specific hairstyles and accessories and they occur in a specific context. The mailroom guy you see everyday at the office and never give a second thought to would probably be somewhat more arresting if he were wearing leather chaps and a chest harness and a little peaked cap and dancing next to you at a club, wouldn't he? And woman at the supermarket with the annoying five-year-old would strike you differently with her hair back and wearing her sheriff's deputy uniform. This intersection of junk science and junk media that fuels blogosphere debates is so ridiculous. Especially when people don't bother to read the articles they're quoting: The Ache gave less favorable ratings overall to African-American faces, and they called the Caucasian anthropologists "pyta puku", meaning longnose, behind their backs. One Caucasian anthropologist was given the nickname "anteater".

My guess is that Japanese and Chinese preferences are different now than they were 300 years ago, and this should be doumentable.

Western preferences are different now than they were 300 years ago, or even 100 years ago.

Fine, Jake, but I did have a point. Specifically, I'm pretty sure that the taste for large eyes has been recently developed. I also suspect that the Chinese of today prefer bustier women than the Chinese of 200 years ago (Chinese called the missionary wives "cows".)

It's all too much. I'm just going to stick with the classics.

1. White people are the most beautiful.

2. A woman's best features are her tits, ass, and legs. Order of preference will vary.

3. Black people have big penises, with whitey running second, and Asians a distant third.

All of this is genetically determined, and beyond dispute.

Speaking of models, I'm a bit surprised too that no one has brought up the fetish for biracial models (and occasionally actors) that has been ascendant these last 6 or 8 years, particularly those individuals who have very light skin, freckles and curly red hair.

Okay, you're going to have to give examples, cause when I think "very light skin, freckles, and curly red hair", I think "whiter than sour cream", not "biracial".

193: What I hear you saying in your comment is that "cultural standards of fashion are a large factor in attractiveness". I don't really dispute that, nor see how it's relevant. Was that your point? Then you make an unsupported assertion that the studies aren't valid. On their own terms? Or because they don't prove anything relevant? And then,

"Especially when people don't bother to read the articles they're quoting"

I can assure you that I did read the entire article, including that quote. To say that someone did not read something when they very likely have is hyperbolic, insulting, and counterproductive. Unless you meant it literally, in which case it's wrongheaded, insulting, and counterproductive. Instead, use language like "I think you missed the import of this section".

Let me quote you a section directly before what you quoted:

"In the Jones and Hill study, people in Brazil, the United States, and Russia, as well as the Hiwi and Ache Indians, were presented a multiracial, multicultural set of faces (Indian, African-American, Asian-American, Caucasians, mixed-race Brazilian, and others). There was significant agreement among the five cultures in their beauty ratings and some differences."

I think the implication there is that the agreements outweighed the differences. Also, from the other quote:

"Within and between cultures, individuals may display variance in response to specific features, but will respond in a similar manner to the features as a whole."

I can't really respond more specifically, since you just let the quote stand on its own. I'm not sure exactly what your point was. And since I'm already responding more substantially, it's probably a good time to go back to the original assertion I took mild exception with:

"arguments which try so hard to assign some non-cultural explanation to phenomena like erotic appreciation that are so clearly dependent on the cultural constructs of race, gender and class"

AFAICT, what happened in this thread was (1) people wondering whether mixed race people are actually hotter, and (2) people wondering whether wondering this or believing this is racist. Because you said "non-cultural explanation", I assume you're talking about (1). But most of the mixed race people in question are people who live here, in the same culture, and so if there is any difference in hotness it really can't be a cultural thing. So I really don't see exactly which arguments you're referring to. And I can't really respond if I don't understand. I'm not even sure you were arguing against cross-cultural similarity of beauty ideals.

186: If I understand it correctly, what I quoted in 183 said that the agreement for overall attractiveness was .93. That figure included all physical traits apparent from the photographs. (I assume it included bodies too, since it mentions those.) I'm not sure because the link appears to be down so I can't read the rest. The specific traits they mention were examined separately to help explain and decompose the .93 figure, not cherry picked to compose it.

184, 196. but which race has the best booty?

198: While I share some of your confusion as to the direction the conversation took, I read the "non-cultural explanation" bit to mean something along the lines of it being the multi-racialness itself rather than anything about the physical appearance of the person that was responsible for the percieved hotness. In dog terms, it'd be like saying mutts are superior to purebreds not because purebreds have all sorts of the problems one would expect from artificially constrained inbreeding and mutts don't, but because over-breeding dogs takes away their domesticity, which is a defining dog-trait.

While I think that may be part of what's going on, I don't think that it's necessarily the dominant part. I'm also somewhat saddened that the responses seem to boil down to not "thinking that multiracial people are hotter is racist" but "thinking that 'multi-racial people are hotter' is truth-apt is heretic".

200: Yes, that makes a good deal more sense. But then, it's a bit of a non sequitur from earlier in 181 when m's argument was that the majority of interracial people he/she knows that don't really appear to be so, and aren't unusually attractive. Maybe more connected to the second paragraph? But I don't see the point of the second paragraph either. It's a mixture of things that are true and things that are arguably true, but I don't see the point.

"What this comes down to, as mentioned above, is that all of this is cultural. And when I say cultural, I mean 'deeply ingrained in our culture.'"

Can you define how you're using cultural in the first sentence without using the word "culture"? Maybe that would help me make sense of it.

"that many of [the terms for interracial people we use] are fairly explicit in the way they delineate a hierarchy of race. It's not as though these conversations can somehow occur outside the boundaries of our shared burden of racism and race hatred."

What does that last sentence even mean? And why is that sort of language so repellent to me? I have a very vague idea of what your point is, and I don't have that reaction to the point. But those terms just irk me for some reason.

Is your point that in the way we talk about this we're failing some obligation created by the history and presence of racism in the country? What obligation would that be?

"I note, for instance, that people are bandying the term "exotic" around pretty freely here. Let's break that down: What exactly do you mean when you say "exotic"? I don't think it's quite as simple as some people seem to believe."

"Reminiscent of foreign, unfamiliar culture." The connotation that I guess you're poking at is of colonialism. Haven't we gone over this before?

What does that last sentence even mean?

Far be it from me to speak for minneapolitan, but what I assumed he meant by that is that we're all, by virtue of being part of this society, personally affected by and implicit in "race" the social construct, so we can't really abstract away from the context in which discussions like this arise.

"Thinking that mixed-race people are hotter may not make you racist, but something else probably does"?

202: Not helping my comprehension.

Hey, I tried.

185: But Dean Cain is part Japanese, not part Chinese. And also, not that hot.

I'm sure this barely counts as logic, but here goes... The key factor, to my mind, is that multiracial parentage is not assigned randomly.

In a culture where a degree of racism (or at least of social segregation) is the norm, I should expect that individuals who fall for someone who is outside their culturally-sanctioned range would be likely to have striking good looks (on either side or both) as an element in the attraction. Generally young romantics don't defy Family and Tradition to win the Forbidden Love of someone who has (to borrow a phrase at which I'm still childishly giggling) "a face like a slapped arse".

This hypothesis would predict that multiracial children in socieities where there is no social stigma attached to "miscegenation" (sorry for the dirty word) should have a more normal curve of attractiveness, which seems to be implied above by commenters who have actually travelled.

I should expect that individuals who fall for someone who is outside their culturally-sanctioned range would be likely to have striking good looks

In my experience this is particularly true...in movies. Real world, not so much.

So, is it racist to have the view that mixed-race people are unusually likely to be attractive?

Nah. Heck, my Chinese-ancestry fiancee and I hope you're right.

Criminy, GB! If I read your blog I would have known this a couple weeks ago; but I'm afraid of getting Republican cooties. Belated congratulations! (How old are you roughly? I had you figured for late 30's. Is this your first marriage?)

(Not sure why your fiancée would hope Alameida's correct though -- are you of mixed-race ancestry?

Here's an article saying that people are more attracted to faces that average out the various metrics of appearance:

A new study published last month in the journal Psychological Science, offered a new explanation why average faces (mathematically average, not average-looking) are judged more attractive. The researchers, Piotr Winkielman of the University of California, San Diego and Jamin Halberstadt of University of Otago in New Zealand, said that we prefer average faces because they are closer to our mental prototype of a face. In other words, average faces are more "face-like."

Maybe mixed-race faces are "hot" because by mixing races, you're averaging out the "look" of each race rather than tending toward one extreme or the other.

Thanks, Clown. You know, if you expose yourself to mild doses of Republican cooties on a regular basis, it builds up your resistance.

I am mid-30's, and it will be the first time for both of us. As to why we would hope Alameida is correct, we simply want the best for our children. You know, what with lookism running rampant in society and all that.

I should clarify that 213 is referring to prospective future children. No shotgun (samurai sword?) wedding implied.

213/14 -- Oh right -- I didn't make the critical connection. Thanks for the contribution to Standpipe's blog. Again, congratulations.

Hey, my plan right now is to hijack this thread drastically. (Can one "hijack" "drastically"? It matters not, that is what I am doing.) See my sitch is, I just got a new job. In my old job, I commuted by train. In my new job, I must commute by car. So, I need to buy a car. You guys were all talking about cars on the other thread so I figure you know something, so I am asking for your advice. I want to buy a used car and spend less than $10,000. My gut impulse is that I want either a Honda or a Saturn, because I have frequently heard these two makes recommended as sturdy, reliable cars. Is my gut instinct good? Any thoughts?

Obviously, you should buy a motorcycle.

Thanks for the contribution to Standpipe's blog

Er... you're welcome. BTW, what is Standpipe's blog, and how did I contribute to it?

Standpipe fictitiosly keeps a blog for explaining jokes, specifically inside jokes made on Unfogged comments threads. You contributed to it by explaining the joke that I did not get. I am reciprocating in kind.

fictitiously

217 -- actually I was thinking about a Vespa-type scooter; but (a) I would not enjoy riding to work in the driving rain, and (b) I kind of like the idea of having an automobilic personal space.

Clownae, Hondas are great. Get the hybrid. When you're tired of it I'll buy it off you.

Unfortunately the hybrid is way over my budget.

Oh, too bad. Well, Hondas in general are great, and you can get a good (conventional) used one for cheap.

Any general advice on used-car buying? It is an activity I have never participated in before. It looks to me like both Honda and Saturn have certification programs for used cars bought through their dealers, I guess that is probably the way to go although the tightwad in me protests.

221: actually I was thinking about a Vespa-type scooter; but (a) I would not enjoy riding to work in the driving rain, and (b) I kind of like the idea of having an automobilic personal space.

Aha. Sounds like you want a carver.

I still maintain that these studies are junk science, in that they are attempting to explain something that is culturally determined, for the reasons I enumerate above, starting from the assumption that it is not culturally determined, but rather wholly biological. I could take a cross-section of people from around the world and show them pictures of economy cars and perhaps find some Platonic ideal relationship between the width of the bumper and the height of the rear-view mirror, but it wouldn't tell me which one was the better car, or which was likely to be the best seller. All it would tell me is that there may be some biologically determined preference for certain systems of proportion that operates when humans look at similar two-dimensional images. And that is not analagous to a universal standard of hottness.

We can probably stake out the furthest boundaries of attractiveness with some degree of certainty. I doubt many people of any background would find someone who'd lost half their face in a cluster bomb attack on a small Afghan village to be a model of attractiveness. But as you get closer to some kind of mean for height, weight, features, hair etc. etc., it seems very unlikely to me that you'll find much agreement about who is hotter than who among people of different cultures. That's because aesthetics are culturally determined. Not the least by patriarchy, which this entire thread feeds into.

Hey, I'm not the one who said either that Dean Cain was hot or part Japanese. Just passing it along.

I think there are a number of features of Cherokee history that would lead someone to over-identify, even where no 'princess' was involved.

I'm late to the thread....

I'm bi-racial (anglo father, chinese mother). As an undergrad, I was informed that I had a doppleganger. When I finally met my so-called twin, I was surprised for two reasons. One: she was female. (I'm not.) Two: When I asked her what her race was... she said "Jewish". (She was also bi-sexual... but I don't think that counts as a race. Ahem.)

I don't know if this is still the case, but my parents relationship was unusual at the time; it required both of them to have transgressive personalities. Which, in some part, they've passed on to me.

So: Transgression and ambiguity might be almost as hot as fiery tempers in a Latina, even if those qualities were found in a Jew. (I mean, "even if")

Lastly, as far as the charge of racism: I am not any better looking than my white friends. But I'll take whatever I can get.

218-219: See the about page on Standpipe's blog.

207 is not correct. As one of the few actually mixed-race people that comments here, I feel I must pipe up. My parents were good looking, but not ravishingly so or anything.

225: A good book is the Car Buyer's and Leaser's Negotiating Bible by William Bragg. It's mostly about new cars, but the section on used cars is good too.

The Consumer Reports auto issue recommends used makes and models, and the list might be on their web site too. The quality of the specific car is most important, though, and the quality depends on things you can't check just by looking at the car. Have a mechanic inspect a car before you buy.

Most Hondas should be good, but you'll have to get one several years old to spend less than $10,000.

Clownligature, the last time I bought a car (a Honda, in fact) I did so from Carmax. If you don't have a lot of experience dealing with used car salesman, you might want to consider it -- it's no-haggle fixed price, and the salesmen are not paid on commission so they don't have any immediate reason to try to screw you (although they did, as a matter of course, try to sell me an extended warranty).

Can you go into more detail about Carmax, of which I have never heard?

I've used Carmax a good deal because I hate salespeople and similar interactions in general, and being an (presumed) single young woman interacting with salesdudes is pretty much hell of no fun. So, if you're a misanthrope, they rule. Their website.

(It turns out that salesdudes are equally as horrible when you're buying a ridiculously expensive new car and paying cash, just in the opposite direction.)

Hm. They do not appear to have any locations in NJ or surrounding states.

Huh. Well, they certainly have them in MD, and I think I remember seeing some in both DE and PA, so if you're not averse to a ~3 hour drive... (well, depending on where in NJ you live relative to my crazy uncle.)

Hey CharleyCarp, I contacted that organization you mentioned, and they don't have any more volunteer positions for lawyers in California (sad emoticon). I asked them to keep my name on file in the event anything opens up.

From CU, some reliable used cars in the $8K->$10K range but not at all the complete list:

Honda Accord '00; Civic '01; CR-V '00; Prelude '98

Mazda B-Series (2WD) '01; Millenia '01; MX-5 Miata '99; Protegé '02

Nissan Altima '01; Frontier '00; Maxima '99;-00;
Pathfinder '00; Xterra '01

Toyota 4Runner '99; Camry '00; Camry Solara '99;
Celica '00; Corolla '02; Echo '03; RAV4 '00; Sienna '01;

From CU's used cars to avoid:

Saturn Ion '03, '05; L-Series (V6) '00-02; Relay '05-06; Vue '02-03

Thanks for the list, Bioh.

No problem. If you want more detail send me an email address. I didn't want to get into a "fair use" debate by putting the entire thing up in public.

My friends and I have worked on our share of used cars in the last 15 years or so, and these are my casual observations.

Fuck American brands. All of them. Don't go there. No Saturn.

Your price range means no European brands, so Toyota and Honda. They're the best of the Japanese brands by far. Camry and Corolla in the Toyota, Civic and Accord for the Honda. The Corolla and Civics are cheaper, so you'll get a newer model with less miles than the mid size, and they'll get better mileage. Mid size of course roomier.

For the love of God get a Carfax account when you start shopping around. Run the VIN of any prospective buy. A shockingly high number of used cars that look like a good deal are in fact ex-rentals. This will show on the title history with a Carfax check. Avoid ex rentals like the plague.

Thanks gswift. No Saturn huh? My little brother (who has way more experience with cars than have I) is always telling me they're great.

Every time my gaze falls upon the title of this thread, I wish it were actually "Racist Complements," accompanied by some kind of punning about what races best complement each other.

For the last twenty years it's happened that we've always had one large American car, usually a station wagon, and one Japanese, a stick-shift compact that is my personal vehicle. I do all the work ever done on the small car, and sometimes on the big. I've a lot of tools and experience, going back forty years; I usually acquire a car late in its life by normal standards.

The last two Americans we've had, both Taurus wagons, have been the best of their kind in my experience. Worth fixing and pleasant to drive.

My last two personals have been Civics, and have also been the best of their kind. Their predecessors were Subarus, which I liked a lot, in part because of their conceptual and detail resemblance to VWs—I'm old enough to have cut my teeth, or maybe that should be skinned my knuckles on the old beetle—but which were much more troublesome, I see in retrospect.

I believe very old and cheap cars have actually become substantially more reliable than they once were, because the emission laws require them to be built so as to stay in tune better, and the safety rules make them more robust. Materials substitution and development play a role, too. Geezers may sigh about the old cars, but I can tell you from experience these are better. This knowledge is probably worth knowing even for someone who doesn't work on them, because it tells what to expect and whether they're worth fixing—usually yes. What you buy through CarMax will be much younger and more reliable than what comes my way.

"Very old" needs to be more specific, but yes. 10-year emissions warranties are a wonderful thing. Get a Honda Civic, change the timing belt, and you'll be fine.

And re: Saturn. It started out as an attempt to make a car with Japanese-style customer satisfaction by doing things differently from the rest of GM. A labor force not cynical from 30 years of management-union anger in Tennessee instead of Detroit, plastic body panels, no-haggle pricing, etc etc. This actually worked surprisingly well for the first batch of Saturn models (the SC/SL/SW). However, it had clear political risks and ended up falling victim to them, to the point that now Saturn is just another bit of GM brand engineering.

246 -- Does that mean older Saturns are good? Is there a cutoff model year?

My parents had an older (1993) Saturn for many years. They never had any serious trouble with it.

My experience messing about with Saturns (acquaintance owned, I've never had one) reminded me of old Ford pickups. Some people loved them and had them run forever, but others were a disaster. Too hit and miss, just not the same level of quality control as Toyota and Honda.

Thanks.

May I recommend Prizms? (Geo or Chevy, although my experience was with a '98 Chevy). I am given to understand that they are Corollas, engine-wise, and cheap-but-not-rabidly-unaesthetic Chevys, outside-wise. I drove a '98 Prizm for about four years and sold it to a friend who has remained a friend, testifying to the car's good qualities. I did have to replace the serpentine belt and get the door mechanism fixed, plus a couple of other minor things, but in four years I spent less than $1000 on repairs, which is pretty decent for a used car. I drove it around in blazing Large Midwestern City heat. I drove it around in dreadful Large Midwestern City sludgy dirty ice and snow. I even drove it to other Large Midwestern Cities and drove around there. I paid $7000, which was I think too much, but it was my first car purchase and I was still in my youth and I'm female and all, so I just feel lucky that it was only $7000 and the didn't get me to sign away soul/firstborn/liters of blood/pets/ancestral heavy wood furniture. By which I mean that I'm a sucker and they can see me coming. But it was a good car.

I think the SL1/SL2/SC1/SC2 etc are all fine cars. The newer stuff is just more rebadged GM metal (their SUV, the sports car, the Aura, etc).

I think that the Prizm was actually much closer to a Toyota Corolla than Frowner gives it credit for - they are both built in the same factory down in Fremont, and as Wikipedia says, are "virtually identical".

To stick up for American cars and confirm IDP's experience, the 1995 Taurus wagon we drive has been very little grief. (Admittedly, the muffler just fell off, but that sort of thing happens.)

"Very old" needs to be more specific

Drove an '85 Civic until this summer, now driving an '88 Civic. Drove an '89 Taurus from '95 to '02, a '97 ever since.

Whoa. While I'm generally a fan of the older cars (and bikes!) that seems old enough that finding parts might not be trivial, and one might miss having OBD-II. My '96 Econoline seems to be in an age/reliability sweet spot, probably much like your Taurus. Harder to work on, though.

217,221: get an Aerostitch. Rain is no problem, nor are work clothes. If you live around a city and so can use public transportation to cover some portion of the transportation requirement space, you can do pretty well with bikes.

My '85 Civic was from the apogee of fuel economy. It had only four speeds but at 1300cc, its carbureted engine, probably the last I'll ever own, got over 45mpg even last year on trips to Wisconsin.

When my kids were small, I was reassured by the fact our '89 Taurus did not have air bags to break their necks. My wife, a good driver in winter, is continually disconcerted by the braking system in our '97.

I needed to replace the underhood fuse, that used to be called the fusible link, in the '88 Civic this summer, and found they'd changed 3 times since '85, and had to be special-ordered. You can bet when I worked on the alternator a couple of weeks ago, I undid the ground strap first thing.

#255, I have an Aerostich (only one "t"; that's just how they spell it) Roadcrafter suit. It's okay in a light rain, but in a downpour, water seeps in through the zippers, which are not sealed. The main value of the Roadcrafter is that it will protect you against asphalt, not rain.

I bet if you mixed a Honda or a Toyota with a Ford or Chevy, you'd get a really attractive car.

I needed to replace the underhood fuse, that used to be called the fusible link, in the '88 Civic this summer, and found they'd changed 3 times since '85, and had to be special-ordered.

Ah, the hunt for parts. A couple years ago needed a new bearing and spindle assembly for an '83 Celica. Damn part not made at all anymore. Hunted around the local wrecking yards and got lucky, pulled a couple off of a junker.

I bet if you mixed a Honda or a Toyota with a Ford or Chevy, you'd get a really attractive car.

Yeah, but mule or hinny? The age of this kind of combining is over. You can get excellent results with parts from up or down the same product line. The '85 would have been dramatically improved by certain Acura Integra parts, like brake rotors and calipers.

257: I've heard you can goop the zippers, but haven't tried (on my two-piece). And for in-town commutes, or even short out-of-town commutes, it keeps me plenty dry. For longer rides, showing up a bit wet is enough better than showing up drenched, that I don't mind the lack of total waterproofness.

259: Of course, this sort of parts hunting is one of the areas that the Internet has unobtrusively made so much easier. In certain cases, I guess.

257: Even in a downpour, it takes a while to start leaking. But if you're going to be doing a long ride in the rain, a set of Frogg Togs fits well over a 'stich.

if you're going to be doing a long ride in the rain it's not fun no matter what one wears. I did a daily twenty mile commute on a bike in Alabama for a few decades and toad-stranglers got me all to often. 'Twas better than riding in LA near obliviots yakking on their phones, tho'. On the other hand, lane-splitting is legal. That's wonderful.

I'm all kinds of late to the thread, but I thought the link to Kanye West's thoughtful take on mixed-race women might make up for it.

Mixed-race people are not unusually attractive. Rain Pryor and Tiger Woods are both mixed-race...yet not unusually attractive.

Keanu Reeves is attractive and mixed, but his similarly-mixed sister is not.

You only think they are because only the most attractive ones get any celeb status or media coverage. But, it's called "self-selection." Were you really to look at a random sampling of mixed people...your stereotype would be quickly disproven.

I would draw everybody's attention to Ms. Yu's top post AOTW, Asian vs Caucasian Penis.