Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer essays

Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer essays In the portrait, I see many vivid colors, reds, yellows, greens, and blues mostly. The lines are very scattered. There are so many it is hard to follow, in places such as her dress, where there are heavy patterns. The texture is soft and blotchy, almost like a watercolor. The woman in the foreground is standing very still, and the people in the background are showing movement, as they are fighting. It is 2 dimensional. There are many shapes that are rounded, and soft. There are even flowers on the ground below the womans feet. It is like she is on a stage, with a small border around it. You see lots of circles. There are no obvious shadows, except some basic shading of the people to make them look dimensional. The lady in the center has on a wild outfit, which consists of several different colors, and shapes. Her puffy pants and heavy fur-trimmed coat contradict the green grass and spring flowers. Gustav Klimt painted this in 1916. This painting is oil on canvas, and approximately 168 x 130 cm. He is said to be living in Weissinbach at the time he painted this particular painting. Even though he moved around so much. It consists of a heavy woman in the foreground, and several fighting men in the background. The woman looks tired and unhappy. It seems that the men are of a different race than her. Maybe it symbolizes the war that was going on at that time. They are holding swords, shields, and have angry faces. I think that it serves the romantic perspective of art. It is very complicated, strange, mysterious, emotional, and rebellious. He uses repetition, which is the source of his splendid decorative effects. He was once described as a pornographer, because of the overly erotic content of many of his paintings. Klimt once said, I am more interested in other people, above all women. The artists intent was romanticism. His emphasis on ...

Laos Facts, History, and More

Laos Facts, History, and More Capital: Vientiane, 853,000 population Major cities: Savannakhet, 120,000; Pakse, 80,000; Luang Phrabang, 50,000; Thakhek, 35,000 Government Laos has a single-party communist government, in which the Lao Peoples Revolutionary Party (LPRP) is the only legal political party. An eleven-member Politburo and a 61-member Central Committee make all laws and policies for the country. Since 1992, these policies have been rubber-stamped by an elected National Assembly, now boasting 132 members, all belonging to the LPRP. The head of state in Laos is the General Secretary and President, Choummaly Sayasone. Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong is the head of government. Population The Republic of Laos has approximately 6.5 million citizens, who are often divided according to altitude into lowland, Midland, and upland Laotians. The largest ethnic group is the Lao, who live mainly in the lowlands and makeup approximately 60% of the population. Other important groups include the Khmou, at 11%; the Hmong, at 8%; and more than 100 smaller ethnic groups that total about 20% of the population and comprise the so-called highland or mountain tribes. Ethnic Vietnamese also make up two percent. Languages Lao is the official language of Laos. It is a tonal language from the Tai language group that also includes Thai and the Shan language of Burma. Other local languages include Khmu, Hmong, Vietnamese and over 100 more. Major foreign languages in use are French, the colonial language, and English. Religion The predominant religion in Laos is Theravada Buddhism, which accounts for 67% of the population. About 30% also practice animism, in some cases alongside Buddhism. There are small populations of Christians (1.5%), Bahai and Muslims. Officially, of course, communist Laos is an atheistic state. Geography Laos has a total area of 236,800 square kilometers (91,429 square miles). It is the only land-locked country in Southeast Asia. Laos borders on Thailand to the southwest, Myanmar (Burma) and China to the northwest, Cambodia to the south, and Vietnam to the east. The modern western border is marked by the Mekong River, the regions major arterial river. There are two major plains in Laos, the Plain of Jars and the Plain of Vientiane. Otherwise, the country is mountainous, with only about four percent being arable land. The highest point in Laos is Phou Bia, at 2,819 meters (9,249 feet). The lowest point is the Mekong River at 70 meters (230 feet). Climate The climate of Laos is tropical and monsoonal. It has a rainy season from May to November, and a dry season from November to April. During the rains, an average of 1714 mm (67.5 inches) of precipitation falls. The average temperature is 26.5 °C (80 °F). Average temperatures over the year range from 34 °C (93 °F) in April to 17 °C (63 °F) in January. Economy Although the economy of Laos has grown at a healthy six to seven percent annually almost every year since 1986  when the communist government loosened central economic control and allowed private enterprise. Nonetheless, more than 75% of the workforce is employed in agriculture, despite the fact that only 4% of the land is arable. While the unemployment rate is only 2.5%, approximately 26% of the population live below the poverty line. Laoss primary export items are raw materials rather than manufactured goods: wood, coffee, tin, copper, and gold. The currency of Laos is the kip. As of July 2012, the exchange rate was $1 US 7,979 kip. History of Laos The early history of Laos is not well-recorded. Archaeological evidence suggests that humans inhabited what is now Laos at least 46,000 years ago, and that complex agricultural society existed there by about 4,000 BCE. Around 1,500 BCE, bronze-producing cultures developed, with complicated funeral customs including the use of burial jars such as those on the Plain of Jars. By 700 BCE, people in what is now Laos were manufacturing iron tools  and had cultural and trade contacts with the Chinese and Indians. In the fourth to eighth centuries CE, people on the banks of the Mekong River organized themselves into Muang, walled cities or petty kingdoms. The Muang were ruled by leaders who paid tribute to more powerful states around them. Populations included the Mon people of the Dvaravati kingdom and proto-Khmer peoples, as well as forebears of the mountain tribes. During this period, animism and Hinduism slowly mixed or gave way to Theravada Buddhism. The 1200s CE saw the arrival of ethnic Tai people, who developed small tribal states centered on semi-divine kings. In 1354, the kingdom of Lan Xang united the area that is now Laos, ruling until 1707, when the kingdom split into three. The successor states were Luang Prabang, Vientiane, and Champasak, all of which were tributaries of Siam. Vientiane also paid tribute to Vietnam.   In 1763, the Burmese invaded Laos, also conquering Ayutthaya (in Siam). A Siamese army under Taksin routed the Burmese in 1778, placing what is now Laos under more direct Siamese control. However, Annam (Vietnam) took power over Laos in 1795, holding it as a vassal until 1828. Laoss two powerful neighbors ended up fighting the Siamese-Vietnamese War of 1831-34 over control of the country. By 1850, the local rulers in Laos had to pay tribute to Siam, China, and Vietnam, although Siam exerted the most influence.   This complicated web of tributary relationships did not suit the French, who were accustomed to the European Westphalian system of nation-states with fixed borders. Having already seized control of Vietnam, the French next wanted to take Siam. As a preliminary step, they used Laoss tributary status with Vietnam as a pretext to seize Laos in 1890, with the intent of continuing on to Bangkok. However, the British wanted to preserve Siam as a buffer between French Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) and the British colony of Burma (Myanmar).  Siam remained independent, while Laos fell under French imperialism. The French Protectorate of Laos lasted from its formal establishment in 1893 to 1950, when it was granted independence in name but not in fact by France. True independence came in 1954  when France withdrew after its humiliating defeat by the Vietnamese at Dien Bien Phu. Throughout the colonial era, France more or less neglected Laos, focusing on the more accessible colonies of Vietnam and Cambodia instead. At the Geneva Conference of 1954, the representatives of the Laotian government and of Laoss communist army, the Pathet Lao, acted more as observers than participants. As a sort of afterthought, Laos has designated a neutral country with a multi-party coalition government including Pathet Lao members. The Pathet Lao was supposed to disband as a military organization, but it refused to do so.  Just as troubling, the United States refused to ratify the Geneva Convention, afraid that communist governments in Southeast Asia would prove to correct the Domino Theory of spreading communism. Between independence and 1975, Laos was embroiled in a civil war that overlapped with the Vietnam War (American War). The famous Ho Chi Minh Trail, a vital supply line for the North Vietnamese, ran through Laos.  As the US war effort in Vietnam faltered and failed, the Pathet Lao gained an advantage over its non-communist foes in Laos. It gained control of the entire country in August  1975. Since then, Laos has been a communist nation with close ties to neighboring Vietnam and, to a lesser degree, China.

The American Experience from 1865 to 1945 Assignment - 1

The American Experience from 1865 to 1945 - Assignment Example With the deprived agriculture in the South, the industrial North became powerful and dominate both politically and economically. Although the North played a vital role in slave freedom, the problem came in the readjustment of vanquished South and victorious North politically and economically. Reconstruction process which focused in states returned in full status passed in four stages such as the appointment of Andrew Johnson as president, Freedmen Bureau which was active in helping refugees, setting employment contract of freedmen. Thirdly, came Radical or Black Reconstruction whereby Republic coalition governed the states under President Ulysses Grant and in fourth stage Redeemer won political control in most states which made all federal troops withdraw, hence the collapse of Republican state governments. "Congressional Radicals strongly disagreed with Andrew Johnson over securing the place of African-Americans in American society." (J.W. Davidson, W.E. Gienapp, C.L. Heyrman, M.H. Lytle and M. B. Stoff, Nation of Nations, Vol I, Chapter 17, 2001). Moderate Republicans who fought for black rights were overpowered by Presidential vote in alliance with radicals.Reconstruction came to an end in 1868 after Rutherford B. Hayes elected as President who withdrew all federal troops which led to Southern states. Black Americans struggle did not end with the collapse of reconstruction, racism and white resistance took charge which led to the loss of land for some of Black American to white farmers. The vivid example is in 1878 when Benjamin Montgomery the first ex-slave to purchase land lost it to Jefferson Davis. White Southerners designed laws to keep blacks uneducated, propertyless but agricultural laboring class. Racism became rampant whereas in Jim Crow's legal codes segregate blacks from whites. The code forbade blacks from mingling with whites; furthermore, due to racism blacks could not compete and secure most jobs. The problem was aggravated by the lack of education and skills for most black Americans and no rights to the legal system. The black American struggle had undergone several obstacles and with the collapse of reconstruction, the philosophy of protecting black rights, subjected them into more racial segregations. Racial segregation did not recede, and despite the fact that male blacks were granted voting freedom, women were not allowed to do so. Blacks now were not permitted to board third class in the trains which were the main transportation after the war. Despite the good documentation of black struggle history in Nation and Nations book, such events were not mentioned. Supreme Courts passed laws that made blacks to have separate accommodations and not mingle with whites accommodations and public schools for blacks and whites.

Constitutional & Administrative Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Constitutional & Administrative Law - Essay Example he first being that the parliament may legislate upon any subject-matter; secondly that Parliament could not be restricted by a predecessor not restrict the powers of a future Parliament; and finally the validity of Acts of Parliament cannot be challenged. Under the legal theory Parliament is entitled to pass law on anything once it has been passed by the House of Commons, House of Lords and receives Royal Assent and such would be held to be legally valid. The limits that have been listed down are those that have been laid down by the democratic process. Thus theoretically the powers of the parliament are absolute and so an Act can extend beyond the territory of the United Kingdom. Furthermore, Parliament can legislate with the Act having retrospective effect. As far as international law is concerned it cannot have effect unless implemented by the Parliament by introduction of an Act. As far as Parliament being bound or being able to bind its successor is concerned importance has been placed on the Act of Union with Scotland 1707, whereby it was suggested that intention of the Act was that it cannot be repealed; however, it is important to mention that there have been amendments that have been made. In Attorney General for New South Wales v. Trethowan2 the Privy Council found the Parliament to be bound by a previous Act while citing the reason that the earlier Act had to be repealed first and so if it was not repealed then the Parliament was bound by it. As far as the new view of sovereignty is concerned Sir Ivor Jennings and Professors Heuston, Marshall, Mitchell and de Smith have stated that Parliament can bind its successor, by redefining itself or by setting out ‘ manner and form’ provisions which need to be followed. A recent example in respect of the procedural requirements is that of Northern Ireland Act 1998 whereby it stated that the Northern Ireland would remain a part of United Kingdom unless done to the contrary by means of a referendum by the

Prejudice and Racism in Conrads Heart of Darkness :: Heart Darkness essays

Racism in Heart of Darkness   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚      Joseph Conrad develops themes of personal power, individual responsibility, and social justice in his book Heart of Darkness. His book contains all the trappings of the conventional adventure tale: mystery, exotic setting, escape, suspense, and unexpected attack. Chinua Achebe concluded, "Conrad, on the other hand, is undoubtedly one of the great stylists of modern fiction and a good story-teller into the bargain" (Achebe 252). Yet, despite Conrad's great story telling, he has also been viewed as a racist by some of his critics. Achebe, Singh, and Sarvan, although their criticisms differ, are a few to name. Normally, readers are good at detecting racism in a book. Achebe acknowledges Conrad camouflaged racism remarks, saying, "†¦ Conrad chose his subject well - one which was guaranteed not to put him in conflict with psychological pre-disposition..." (Achebe, 253). ***CAN YOU TELL US SPECIFICALLY WHAT THIS MEANS? THE READER DOES NOT KNOW WHAT PSYCHOLOGICAL PRE-DISPOSITION IS*** Having gone back and rereading Heart of Darkness, this time reading between the lines, I discovered some racism Conrad felt toward the natives that I had not discovered the first time I read the book. Racism is portrayed in Conrad's book, but one must acknowledge that in the eighteen hundreds society conformed to it. Conrad probably would have been criticized as being soft hearted rather than a racist in his time. Conrad constantly referred to the natives, in his book, as black savages, niggers, brutes, and "them", displaying ignorance toward the African history and racism towards the African people. Conrad wrote, " Black figures strolled out listlessly... the beaten nigger groaned somewhere" (Conrad 28). "They passed me with six inches, without a glance, with the complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages" (Conrad 19). Achebe also detected Conrad's frequent use of unorthodox name calling, "Certainly Conrad had a problem with niggers. His inordinate love of that word itself should be of interest to psychoanalysts" (Achebe 258). Conrad uses Marlow, the main character in the book, as a narrator so he himself can enter the story and tell it through his own philosophical mind. Conrad used "double speak" throughout his book. Upon arriving at the first station, Marlow commented what he observed. "They were dying slowly - it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation lying confusedly in the greenish gloom" (Conrad 20).

Poverty in America: A Global Epidemic

A Global Epidemic Ben Sims Sociology 445: Contemporary Social Problems Professor Shannon Sellers August 2, 2014 Of all the social problems that exist within America today, poverty Is undoubtedly the most prevalent . The stigma of poverty Is no longer solely the plight of third world countries, but rather an epidemic that has vigorously manifested itself in the united States at an alarming rate. Yes, in America, the country teeming with an abundance of natural resources and the patents to the most pioneering technological advances f modern time, Indisputably faces an unprecedented burden of poverty.It is estimated that more than 46 million Americans live in poverty in the US (Tighten 157). American families are increasingly finding themselves struggling to make ends meet, and with the continuing rate of unemployment and the rapid increases to the cost of living more and more families are left to choose between the very basic necessities of life such as food, shelter and healthcare. Po verty has also had a profound impact on education and crime, predominantly in inner-city communities where the wealth inequality is most apparent.With all the carnage caused by poverty being distinctly obvious In America why Is nothing being done about It? Does anyone care? Sadly, the most egregious aspect of the epidemic of poverty in America is that it doesn't have to exist at all. The US ultimately has the resources and means to eliminate poverty altogether, if only it was placed as a high enough priority. To truly comprehend the profound impact that poverty has had on America, there must first be an understanding of what poverty essentially means and how It was caused.Webster dictionary describes poverty as â€Å"the state of one who lacks a usual 1 OFF Dictionary). The textbook however, offers a more in-depth perspective on the term stating that poverty is â€Å"a standard of living below the minimum needed for the maintenance of adequate diet, health and shelter† (Tigh ten 181). This definition implies that the poverty threshold is based on those who can make the minimum amount of money required to maintain a decent level of life and those who cannot. Although these particular descriptions of poverty are not necessarily wrong, they are also not entirely accurate.When most people think of poverty the assumption may be that the core percentage of those actually living in poverty are the homeless or unemployed, but relative to popular belief most of the people living in poverty actually work. They are classified as the working poor. According to US Census data over 2. 6 million full-time workers lived below the poverty line in 2010 (Tighten 161). How is this possible? First and foremost, the federal minimum wage requirement in the United States is $7. 25. So for an employee who works 40 hours a week their total monthly salary would be $1 , 165. 0 before taxes. Now let's analyze how much it would cost for an average American earning a minimum wage sal ary to pay for the 3 most Asia necessities in life: food, shelter and health care. The average percentage that Americans pay in housing costs is approximately 28 to 35 percent of their take home pay (Curmudgeon, 2010). 28 percent of $1,160. 00 is $324. 80. According too 2010 survey conducted by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Americans spend roughly $1 51. 00 a week on food, equaling a whopping $604. 00 a month (Mended, 2012).If we add the average monthly cost of healthcare under Beam's Affordable Care Act, which is $328. 00 (Persuade, 2014), the total monthly expenses for Just the basic necessities alone is a staggering $1 ,256. 0. The basic necessities alone total more than the average worker, earning minimum wage, in America makes in a month and that figure still doesn't account for utility bills, transportation and other miscellaneous expenses. Not to mention the addition of a spouse or children. It is important to understand that poverty is a very complex social dilemma, with a variety of unfounded stereotypes that persist about its causes.One of the most common misconceptions about poverty is that the poor inherently cause their own poverty, alluding to the poor having a lack of drive and ambition necessary to change heir financial status. This perception is often referred to as the person-blame approach . This means that social problems such as poverty are the result of the pathologies of individuals (Tighten 163). Although this notion is credible, in this particular instance, it is slightly off kilter due to that fact that even though 2. Million people go to work and log over 40 hours a week they still won't surpass the threshold of even half of the nation's median salary. And therein lies the problem. The issue is not whether members of society are willing to work, because not only are a majority f the poor willing and able to work hard, they do so when given the opportunity. The real root of the problem is the minimum wage requirement in the US and the lack of access to adequate education and training necessary to acquire better-paying Jobs.The system-blame approach is more fitting in this instance because there is no shortage of people willing to work but rather a shortage in the amount that is being paid out for said work. There is also no shortage in people willing to procure and utilize the sufficient training and education needed to attain better employment but underprivileged. Although the government has in fact tried to implement programs to solve the problem of poverty in America, many of these programs contained crucial flaws and in many cases made the predicament worse. Welfare is the most notable of these programs.Welfare was established to assist underprivileged families and individuals get out of poverty (Tighten 165), but have ultimately led to a disturbing rate of dependency. Instead of assisting families welfare had essentially enabled them in many ways, with a vast majority of recipients not feeling the need to work. Provisions thin the program even made it easier to stay on welfare than to seek employment and encouraged unmarried woman to have children. Thus, the enactment of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. This bill was established to reduce the number of families and individuals dependent on government assistance.These institutional changes helped to reduce welfare dependency by mandating that recipients actively seek work while receiving government assistance, increasing the level of accountability for those in need of financial aid. The government also developed several other programs in an effort to curve poverty such as the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program (TANK) which provides financial assistance to low-income families but also requires them to work at least 20 hours a week to receive benefits (Saddler, 2012).Addition services such as Medicaid, Food Stamps and WICK were all established to essentially assist low-income families achieve financial stability while pro gressively becoming independent of all government aid. Although these programs and institutional amendments have been extremely valuable in assisting the poor and underprivileged maintain a sustainable level of life, unfortunately they haven't been enough to end or even cut the poverty level in Alfa.These programs have ultimately helped sustain the global threshold of poverty in many ways by serving to only assist low-income families get through financial difficulties instead of helping them get out. The only way for members of the underprivileged society to rise above poverty is to provide the means to earn more than the nation's median income. This goes back to the need for programs that assist individuals in acquiring the knowledge and training necessary to acquire higher paying Jobs and also for the government to raise the minimum wage requirement.Perhaps the most compelling explanation for the persistence of poverty is the remarry of private profit. The basic principle of capit alism is – who gets what is determined solely by private profit rather than collective need (Tighten 173). By private corporations emphasizing the theory of maximizing profits they ultimately end up endorsing poverty. This is done by companies paying their workers the minimum amount possible including benefits and pocketing the wealth that was created by laborers and distributing it among the owners instead of the working class.Primacy of profit also endorses poverty by employing a bevy of uneducated and desperate laborers who are eager to work for low wages. Many of these laborers are illegal immigrants and don't view having benefits as a necessity. This in turn makes it extremely profitable for owners of businesses and large corporations to hire these workers because of the amount of money that they will be able to save while still being able to employ laborers full time.Poverty is supported and maintained through my belief that the US government has made attempts to curve the impact of poverty, I believe that the United States has the power to end poverty all together. This can be accomplished by making poverty a top priority. The United States spends roughly 712. Billion dollars of our nation's defense each year (Tighten 177). A percentage of that figure can be deducted and contributed to combat poverty without Jeopardizing our nations' defense at all.This extra money could be used to provide adequate schooling and fund programs that promote academic advancement in inner-city communities. Those funds could also be used to provide training seminars for individuals with limited education who seek higher paying Jobs and wish to be more competitive candidates in today's Job market. Most importantly however, those funds could be used to raise the federal minimum wage requirement to a level that allows ore people to earn above or at least earn wages comparable to the nation's median salary.

Five Myths About Multiracial People in the U.S.

When Barack Obama set his sights on the presidency, newspapers suddenly began devoting a lot more ink to the multiracial identity. Media outlets from Time Magazine and the New York Times to the British-based Guardian and BBC News pondered the significance of Obama’s mixed heritage. His mother was a white Kansan and his father a black Kenyan. Mixed-race people continue to make news headlines, thanks to the U.S. Census Bureau’s finding that the country’s multiracial population is exploding. But just because mixed-race people are in the spotlight doesn’t mean that the myths about them have vanished. What are the most common misconceptions about multiracial identity? This list both names and dispels them. Multiracial People Are Novelties What’s the fastest-growing group of young people? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the answer is multiracial youths. Today, the United States includes more than 4.2 million children identified as multiracial. That’s a jump of nearly 50 percent since the 2000 census. And among the total U.S. population, the number of people identifying as multiracial spiked by 32 percent, or 9 million. In the face of such groundbreaking statistics, it’s easy to conclude that multiracial people are a new phenomenon now rapidly growing in rank. The truth is, however, that multiracial people have been a part of the country’s fabric for centuries. Consider anthropologist Audrey Smedley’s finding that the first child of mixed Afro-European ancestry was born in the U.S. eons ago—way back in 1620. There’s also the fact that historical figures from Crispus Attucks to Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable to Frederick Douglass were all mixed-race. A major reason why it appears that the multiracial population has soared is that for years and years, Americans weren’t allowed to identify as more than one race on federal documents such as the census. Specifically, any American with a fraction of African ancestry was deemed black due to the â€Å"one-drop rule.† This rule proved particularly beneficial to slave owners, who routinely fathered children with slave women. Their mixed-race offspring would be considered black, not white, which served to increase the highly profitable slave population. The year 2000 marked the first time in ages that multiracial individuals could identify as such on the census. By that point in time, though, much of the multiracial population had grown accustomed to identifying as just one race. So, it’s uncertain if the number of multiracials is actually soaring or if ten years after they were first permitted to identify as mixed-race, Americans are finally acknowledging their diverse ancestry. Only Brainwashed Multiracials Identify as Black A year after President Obama identified himself as solely black on the 2010 census, he’s still garnering criticism. Most recently, Los Angeles Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez wrote that when Obama marked only black on the census form, â€Å"he missed an opportunity to articulate a more nuanced racial vision for the increasingly diverse country he heads.† Rodriguez added that historically Americans haven’t publicly acknowledged their multiracial heritage due to social pressures, taboos against miscegenation and the one-drop rule. But there’s no evidence that Obama identified as he did on the census for any of those reasons. In his memoir, Dreams From My Father, Obama remarks that the mixed people he’s encountered who insist on the multiracial label concern him because they often seem to make a concerted effort to distance themselves from other blacks. Other mixed-race people such as the author Danzy Senna or the artist Adrian Piper say that they choose to identify as black because of their political ideologies, which include standing in solidarity with the largely oppressed African-American community. Piper writes in her essay â€Å"Passing for White, Passing for Black†: â€Å"What joins me to other blacks†¦is not a set of shared physical characteristics, for there is none that all blacks share. Rather, it is the shared experience of being visually or cognitively identified as black by a white racist society, and the punitive and damaging effects of that identification.† People Who Identify as â€Å"Mixed† Are Sellouts Before Tiger Woods became a tabloid fixture, thanks to a string of infidelities with a slew of blondes, the most controversy he sparked involved his racial identity. In 1997, during an appearance on â€Å"The Oprah Winfrey Show,† Woods declared that he did not view himself as black but as â€Å"Cablinasian.† The term Woods coined to describe himself stands for each of the ethnic groups that make up his racial heritage—Caucasian, black, Indian (as in Native American) and Asian. After Woods made this declaration, members of the black community were livid. Colin Powell, for one, weighed in on the controversy by remarking, â€Å"In America, which I love from the depths of my heart and soul, when you look like me, you’re black.† After his â€Å"Cablinasian† remark, Woods was largely seen as a race-traitor, or at the very least, someone aiming to distance himself from blackness. The fact that none of Woods’ long line of mistresses was a woman of color only added to this perception. But many who identify as mixed-race don’t do so to reject their heritage. On the contrary, Laura Wood, a biracial student at the University of Maryland told the New York Times: â€Å"I think it’s really important to acknowledge who you are and everything that makes you that. If someone tries to call me black, I say, ‘yes — and white.’ People have the right not to acknowledge everything, but don’t do it because society tells you that you can’t.† Mixed People Are Raceless In the popular discourse, multiracial people are oft characterized as if they’re raceless. For example, the headlines of news articles about President Obama’s mixed-race heritage often ask, â€Å"Is Obama Biracial or Black?† It’s as if some people believe that the different racial groups in one’s heritage cancel each other out like positive and negative figures in a math equation. The question shouldnt be whether Obamas black or biracial. He’s both—black and white. Explained the black-Jewish writer Rebecca Walker: â€Å"Of course Obama is black. And he’s not black, too. He’s white, and he’s not white, too. ... He’s a lot of things, and neither of them necessarily exclude the other.† Race-Mixing Will End Racism Some people are positively thrilled that the number of mixed-race Americans appears to be soaring. These individuals even have the idealistic notion that race-mixing will lead to bigotry’s end. But these people ignore the obvious: ethnic groups in the U.S. have been mixing for centuries, yet racism hasn’t vanished. Racism even remains a factor in a country such as Brazil, where a wide swath of the population identifies as mixed-race. There, discrimination based on skin color, hair texture, and facial features is endemic—with the most European-looking Brazilians emerging as the country’s most privileged. This goes to show that miscegenation isn’t the cure for racism. Instead, racism will only be remedied when an ideological shift occurs in which people aren’t valued based on what they look like but on what they have to offer as human beings.