What's the New Black? Shifting Sands of Race
Earlier, we mentioned [1] Jeff Yang's musings [2] that Obama might be categorically Asian American in a way that transcends biological race.
In interesting counterpoint to that is a conversation I recently had with a friend who speculated that Vijay Singh -- and not Tiger Woods -- may be professional golf's "colored person," if by that we mean a category that renders invisible, unwelcome, or second-class those who are tarred with it. Singh has been cast as an uppity and hypermasculine threat to a gentleman's game; he gets a fraction of the press he deserves, and seems to be the guy that the establishment would love to watch fall on his face [3]. So, pointed out my friend Sameer, might it be said that Singh is categorically Black in a way that also transcends biological race?
See here [4]for Sameer's recent, deftly measured article on Singh for SI's golf issue. And come back if you'd like to comment on the shifting meanings of race in a world that "postmodern" seems almost too quaint a term to describe anymore. It's not that race has disappeared or become null and void; but the categories are certainly more supple now, in ways that both give us a lot more freedom of movement, and make it incredibly hard for us to tell where the sand-traps ahead of us lie.