Beginning with the Vasconcelos’ The Cosmic Race, the idea of a sort of post-racial society made up almost entirely by his “fifth race” or “Cosmic Race” seems desirable in theory.  To have a society in which people no longer feel the need to distinguish the race of others seems promising for the prospects of inclusion and peace in a society.  Yet, I have a couple with this concept.

First off, while the world may be moving very slowly in a post-racial direction, having a true single fifth race is just too idyllic for me to realistically embrace. I think that abolishing racial discrimination goes against human nature, since the construct of race is so deeply intertwined into various social structures.  Vasconcelos doesn’t really seem to face the feasibility of his dream (also he was writing in the 1920s???).

Second, even if the races were indeed to blend together, I think it would have unintended consequences for cultures and future cultural presentation.  I think the elimination of race would further the phenomenon of the cultural melting pot- an concept popularly associated with American culture.  In the melting pot theory, all different cultures are tossed in together to create one new blended culture with aspects of each “ingredient” culture.  Just as the races would blend together in Vasconcelo’s vision, I feel that culture too would blend together.  This idea of the cultural melting pot is popularly associated with the United States.  While we discussed in class how culture is a multi-faceted concept, in my mind I do associate it somewhat with race, even if subconsciously (that may be just me, I’m not sure).  Whether such a cultural blending would be a bad or good thing I think is up for debate- we talked in class about how some anthropologists may rally for the “preservation of culture” in order to maintain their jobs.

For the Wade reading, I thought that the way he described mestizaje as an “all inclusive ideology of exclusion” that is actually dependent on “the ideology of its excluded others” on page 243 was nicely nuanced.  Also makes me think about the United States, where popular culture has long borrowed from African American culture while the country has marginalized its black citizens (I’m thinking culture mainly in terms of music right now, particularly regarding the development of the Swing Era, rock n’ roll, and rap/hip hop/R&B).