The multiracial frame (by 2050?) is my name for the lens through which most Americans would see themselves and their society if it were ever to live up to its ideals and became a successful multiracial society. It would replace the white racial frame that most Americans now hold. In time it would make the anti-racist counter-frames of blacks, Natives, Chicanos and others unnecessary.
It would not be this fake Kumbaya / post-racial / colour-blind / diversity-through-tokenism thing that keeps the white racial frame in place.
It is a mindset, not a set of particular policies.
I cannot tell you what such a frame would be, I can only start thinking out loud about what it might contain, offered here for discussion:
- Liberty-and-justice frame. America is made great not by repeating the grand words of Jefferson, Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr, but by making them come true:
- Multiracial model of society: America does not belong to any one race but to everyone who lives there. Everyone should have equal rights and equal opportunity. Inequality, caused by racist policies and institutions, past and present, is what screws up American society, not the pathologies of people of colour.
- The oneness of mankind. “We are all God’s children”, as Christians would say.
- America is a coat of many colours – not a melting pot. White is just one colour of that coat, just one ethnic group. America is not “white with impurities”. Everyone is equally American. America was built and defended by the blood, sweat and tears of everyone.
- Multiracial is beautiful: America brings together people from all over the world to create something new. It represents the whole human race, not just part of it. That is part of its strength and beauty.
- The Multiracial Default. Nothing is truly American unless it represents all races. Tokenism is a joke. Eurocentrism and Afrocentrism are too limited. Listen to people of all races. Decisions made mainly by people of one race are limited in viewpoint and tend to favour that race, therefore:
- Multiracial power. Institutions work best when the people who run them look like America, not like some white millionaire’s club or white suburbia – institutions like Congress, the president’s cabinet, courts, juries, corporate boards, the press, the police, schools, etc.
- Stereotypes are false. They are based on the logical fallacy of confirmation bias. No group of millions of humans can possibly be reduced to a handful of stereotypes. People are not that simple. Everyone is an individual first and foremost.
- Different is just different – not threatening, opposite, exotic, pathological, bad or ew. No one race or ethnic group is a shining model for others. Accept people as they are.
- America is screwed up. It was born in slavery and genocide and built on racism. It does not even work properly any more for most white people. The past cannot be changed, but it can be faced up to and made right by making America a land of equality for everyone.
– Abagond, 2013.
Thanks to commenter Jefe for suggesting this post.
See also:
- white racial frame
- counter-frames
- Kumbaya anti-racism – fake multiracial frame
- American abolitionists – had a true multiracial frame
- elements
- anti-elements from the white racial frame:
- Quoting MLK
- “I don’t see colour, I just see a human being”
- The diseased host model of American society
- dichotomous thinking
- Why do whites hate, demonize, fear and look down on blacks?
- The perpetual foreigner stereotype
- The White Default
- colour-blind racism: the four frames
- Orientalism
- The model minority stereotype
I wish this would and could happen but at least the way things are going right now, I remain cynical and skeptical about our nation. 😦
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This is the best thing I’ve read on your blog to date. I can’t see anything for a rational person to argue with.
Screw pessimism. This is deffinitely the way to see the future.
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I think I am experiencing a case of race fatigue.
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Endearing photo you chose of the Loving couple. “There’s just a few people in this community. There’s a few white and a few colored, and as we grew up and they grew up, we all helped one another. It was all mixed together from the start, so it just kept going that way.” (Richard Loving)
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Will this happen? Sure. By 2050s….?
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Dude this is already happening. If you don’t believe me I will make a video for you to prove it.
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I like the coat of many colors thing better than the melting pot, that always sounds weird to me. like we are going to melt into one culture one race. but coat of many colors sounds like we are going to be made up of different cultures and colors and all will be equally represented not melted together to form one thing.
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@ Noneya
It is happening in some areas, but just because it is happening in your area or even mine does not mean one should be foolish enough to conclude it is happening every where.
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This sounds like some kind of Utopia.
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@ mary burrell
It can be. Part of me believes there will still be some type of prejudice hiding in the wind.
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This sounds like a great idea, but a piece of me is betting the black and not-black would be a more realistic racial frame happening in good ole Amerikka.
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Racist whites won’t define this group. But neither will racist blacks. Whether you like it or not. You will be shunned too eventually.
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Thanks for finally putting this up. This is Abagond’s view, not Feagin’s? Or did Feagin propose something similar?
Looking over the proposal points, I think #1-#8 is more for the re-education of white people – most non-whites know about this already. #9-#10 is for everyone. Non-whites also know a little about #10, but much of this history has been whitewashed, so everyone needs to learn about it.
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A nice dream, but I don’t see it happening. I fear Balkanization and ethni strife instead. There’s to much to be gained politically by focusing on race for those in power to allow this kind of outcome, especially as the American middle class is shrinking each year.
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[…] The multiracial frame (by 2050?) is my name for the lens through which most Americans would see themselves and their society if it were ever to live up to its ideals and became a successful multira… […]
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States like Hawaii, California, New York are moving in this direction faster than others. Some cites are moving even faster like Los Angeles, CA; Milpitas, CA; Silver Spring, MD; and New York, NY
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Actually, the next state to become minority-majority will be Maryland, followed by Georgia. Maryland has dropped below 53% non-Hispanic white, and will have a white minority by the next census. Georgia is 55% non-Hispanic white and will be close to 50% minority by the next census. Nevada, Florida, Arizona, New York, New Jersey, Mississippi, and Louisiana will be there around 2025. By 2030, it will already be obvious. I am not sure if they will be able to convert white HIspanics into white fast enough.
This effect does not really mean much if whites are still able to segregate themselves.
NYC and LA is not moving there very fast despite their racial composition. One big problem is the police (together with the criminal justice system). The culture and politics have to have a multiracial frame, not the just the demographics. Even states like Maryland, which are still polarized in their racial politics, will not be there anytime soon.
But something has got to give.
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@ Jefe
This is me. I have not got to that chapter of Feagin’s yet! His last chapter is called “Toward a Truly Multiracial Democracy”. His index does not mention “multiracial frame”, though maybe he has another name for it.
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@ Jefe
I forgot to thank you for suggesting this post. I just added it to the post. My apologies.
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Thanks for the clarification. When you get to Feagin’s final chapter, let us know what he is proposing.
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Yes.
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I truly wonder if we will. I have noticed that there are more interracial couples then when I first left. 5 years ago when I came back home for a year I was shocked because Chicago was sporting more around and for me I grew up with color lines. One had to know exactly which color line he was crossing to get where. Now that I am back I am seeing a lot more of neighbors are sporting multiracial children. I would say that even in Japan you can see this happening more even with the small percent of minorities they have.
I also know how little history it seems kids actually do know. I think the only way for this to truly happen is if we start telling the truth about history. If we start telling how many ethnic groups converted this land to what we see now. How sometimes there efforts were pushed back and we might have had things sooner if not for ignorance and fear.
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This essentially US-American model-of-a-better-tomorrow sounds vaguely like the Canadian template, which, though aspirational and flawed with the lived crack of racism, doesn’t pretend there could be a melting pot.
The co-existence of different peoples was likened to a mosaic.
The 2 countries are neighbours, and share many, many similarities, yet how could their theoretical racial frames — I stress theoretical — be so different from each other?
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I mean like this which I consider modern history, how did Lau vs. Nichols help out students? How did it even come about and why?
Most of my students couldn’t answer this because things like this just aren’t taught. Someone has to go digging. When we do come to the multiracial frame while students and then adults still feel bitter about omitted history?
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Amen.
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Most of this is already in motion.
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So, KOT, why is Lau vs. Nichols left out of the US history books?
Is it still to recent?
I think school boards do not want to make families with these backgrounds feel empowered. But technically, it is not a race-baced decision, and could be beneficial to whites as well.
SF has been at the heart of a lot of these court cases.
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Lau vs Nichols? What is that and how is it significant?
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@Bulanik,
In Canada, until the 1970s the society model had always been mostly Anglo vs. Franco which nearly culminated in a separate Quebec. It wasn’t until post 70s that they even started to have this “visible minority” concept. And while the Native American genocide was also bad, it was not quite as bad as the USA, as their metis population (which are also included in First Nations) can attest.
Canada did enslave small numbers of Africans and Native Americans, but I don’t think Canada ever had colour-coded chattel slavery like the USA. Canada imported hundreds of Africans, not millions.
Regarding Chinese, there were some parallels – the Gold Rush, the Canada-Pacific Railroad, head tax, etc. They used the head tax from 1885 to control immigration before they also had an Exclusion Act from 1923-1947 and the quota was not relaxed until 1967 – so many parallels with the USA (with less of the lynching and genocide).
For USA, it has mostly been white vs. black, where blacks were colour-coded as slaves, then other forms of forced labour. It had to form this racial concept to justify slavery. Canada did not have a need for that.
Finally, the current immigration system is also different. Canada has point system, the USA has a quota system. Canada does have preference for former commonwealth Nations. The USA preference is for family reunification.
So, indeed, we have 2 countries that share a lot of cultural heritage, but who develop such a different model for race relations (and thus, “racial frames”).
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In a nutshell, Lau vs. Nichols (1974) ruled that SF cannot discriminate against students with limited English proficiency as it is tantamount to discrimination based on National Origin, which violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I was already in school when this case hit the national news, so I can *sort of* remember it.
I am sure that most of the readers of this blog are also clueless about this type of civil rights history. This attests that it has probably never even entered the history books.
I have started to think about why SF is so involved in these court disputes. Chinese-Americans in SF have been using the US court system for 130 years now. Must be part of the culture already.
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@Abagond,
Suggest that we add the Model Minority Stereotype to your “anti-elements from the white racial frame”. Under the multiracial frame, there is no need to invent model minorities.
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@ Jefe
Added.
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So you know that it mainly benefits Spanish Speaking minorities now. In which you hear all the time that the system was changed to accommodate them. When in actuality it was put in place by hard working Chinese Americans because they wanted to be able to participate in school. It is over looked one because including it would mean you would have to study why we are inclusive to other languages. Two it also relies on the idea that Asian Americans are passive. Seattle was a hot bed for Asian American politic and civil rights groups in the 60-80’s but very few people can name one Asian American civil rights group. Not unless it has to do with Japanese interment camps. I had to learn about the Korean War after I left high school. It was never mention my entire time in school.
If you have to study social studies then why would you skip out on all of these great social groups. Why not explain the American Indian Movement, San Francisco State Protest, or miss out on the Farm Union in the Western states, or when did the model minority stereotype begin I think it was in the 60’s mid or late. Why skip out on Hispanic moments I live in Chicago and there was a huge Spanish movement in the 60’s and 70’s my friends father was quite high up in the movement but it never happen if I was just studying my school assigned books. Who were the White Panthers? Why can’t American history branch out. Really we learn so little about the people who were in our country and made it what it is today. My modern history class was lacking. Then when I became a history teacher (against the advice of all my teaching friends) I felt sorry for my history teachers. What they are actually given is so piss poor it made tears in my eyes at night. Maybe it is better but I am looking at getting my teaching license again and ever one of my teaching friends counsel against being a history teacher. People really don’t think history is a real subject.
I think that is why so many kids feel betrayed when they start doing research on their own. When the multiracial frame comes to bear real fruit what will these kids feel. So many American inventors were of different ethnic persuasion. Why not let people know we aren’t always great, sometimes we’ve been down right evil. We have sometimes been like the sparkle of rare and precious gem.
(argh no time to edit I am sorry the prince is up.)
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@KOT
Yep, yep, yep.
But, what about the majority which do not do research on their own? Do they just live out their lives brainwashed?
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I told them about one of them, I wor Kuen, but that actually formed in New York City. The 60s was the first indication of a pan-Asian identity, which probably formed in part due to the Korean and Vietnam wars. The US forced the draft on all Americans, including Asian-Americans, who were sent to Asia to kill Asians — they objected to objectifying Asians as gooks so that they could easily be killed. Maybe it echos some of what happened to blacks who were sent to kill Filipinos during the Philippine-American war when the USA had to objectify them as “brown” people.
When I was in university, I attended some of the ECASU conferences (ie, when they were held at Harvard in 1980). They joined hands with the West Coast after the Bakke decision. But I know that the East Coast groups in general were not as big compared to the proliferation on the West Coast.
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I know that the East Coast had ECASU conferences but I never thought they were strong. One because the East Coast is so conservative, two because of the spread of Asians in those states. Everyone talk about African Studies in schools but I think it was actually big protest on the west coast that started getting Asian Studies first then spreading out to other ethnic groups. I even think at the time of protest there was a black Dean at the college. Making the protest no popular with African Americans but supported by the Black Panthers.
If history was really studied I think we would notice that the great push forward into a more multiracial country hyper-jump was in the 60’s and 70’s.
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@ Jefe
So, as a student of Asian American history, what posts suggestions do you have that would be most helpful to me and my readers?
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@ Jefe
Malcolm X after he started reading history on his own in prison:
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@Abagond,
How about if we don’t call it Asian-American civil rights history, but American civil rights history (or simply American History). For I believe
– it is all our history – it belongs to all of us.
– I think most of your readers have almost as many holes or gaps about “African-American civil rights history” as well or at least how it fits in to the context of American history or general American Civil Rights.
Of course, you have tried to plug some of the holes with your blog but we need to link it up together.
I am still working to plug my holes. It’s a lifelong process. I am still learning about how it all works. Some opportunities are lost forever. For example, I didn’t learn the more complete story of the Freedom Riders until after my mother and her parents’ died. That is so unfortunate as I could not discuss it with them. I wish I could meet up and have a talk with people like John Lewis.
Anyhow, I guess you are looking for posts or post ideas. But just as you have taken hundreds of posts to cover the topic, it still barely scratches the surface. But we gotta start somewhere. I’ll try to make up a list. Before the 20th century African-American civil rights period it might make more sense to split into the history of the different ethnic groups as Asian-American did not exist as a racial group back then. Best if we could link up some of it with African-American history too.
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@ jefe, thanks for the explanation about Canada in comparison to the US.
I was never in Canada, but whenever I have been in the company of Canadians, they seem (generally, I stress) subtly but noticeably different in their racial attitudes. It’s hard to say what that was exactly. In comparison Americans, by and large, seemed much more shockable, discomforted and strict about such things. That was impression at least.
LOL! Be careful! 😀
Even watching to see the word “Indian” recognized as a nationality that describes one-fifth of the world’s population has been an eyeopener. 😀
Joking aside, I always got the impression that the Asian presence (not only East Asians, but South and SE Asians) was much greater than in the US.
As you mentioned the Metis, it reminds me of also hearing that self-definition by ethnicity encompasses the notion of “multiple heritages” or some such on the official census. This would imply a different attitude to people of multi-ethnic identities.
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@ Jefe
Right, I am thinking of post recommendations, ones that you think would make the most difference in terms of people’s awareness. Like the Rock Springs Massacre or Lau v Nichols. Stuff that people do not even know that they do not know.
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I just sent you via gmail a preliminary list of topics that I typed up last night, but I suppose we have to prioritize them.
I’m willing to tackle a few of them myself. If you want, I can tell you which ones I would tackle first.
But, before we go to the stuff that “people do not even know that they do not know”, I think we might need to address the ones that people may have some idea of, but no real knowledge of. I would call these the basics. After knowing the basic stuff first (eg, the California Gold Rush, the Chinese Exclusion Act), then we can go into individual events like the Rock Spring Massacre or Lau v. Nichols.
And it might help if people get up to speed on stuff like the Naturalization Act of 1790 and Plessy v. Ferguson and the Fourteenth Amendment, which impacted African Americans, Native Americans and Asian Americans, as well as activist movements that began with, or even preceded the NAACP.
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Here’s a list we all should know about.
Top 10 Racist Supreme Court Rulings
http://civilliberty.about.com/od/raceequalopportunity/tp/supreme_racism.htm
Among the top 10,
– first five involved African-Americans, 2nd five were involved Asian-Americans
– #2-#5 of the first five also were applied in laws to Asian-Americans
– #6, #7, were about citizenship.
– #6 only applied to Asian-Americans as the Naturalization Act of 1906 and the Naturalization Act of 1870 permitted both whites and blacks, and persons of European origin AND African origin (even those born in Africa) to become US citizens, but excluded persons born in Asian countries.
– #5 & #8 are related, dealing with whether a state-sponsored school district is compelled to provide schooling for blacks and Asians respectively when there is no school for them, but a white school available. The answer was NO. Both were overturned in Brown v. Board (1954), as was #4.
– the Fourteenth Amendment invalidated #1
– Loving v. Virginia (1967) invalidated #2, However, Alabama kept the law on its states books until Nov. 2000 (when it was finally repealed).
– The Civil Rights Act of 1964 overturned #3
– Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 invalidated #6 & #7
– #9 & #10 – the US Federal Govt purposely deceived the SCOTUS to obtain the desired ruling. Concealed documents were not made available until many decades later.
– #9 was overturned only in 1986-87
– #10 was never officially overturned. Only in 2011 (after Korematsu’s death) did the Department of Justice file official notice conceding that it was in error, reducing the value of its use as a precedent for future cases. But still, the US govt can still apply the same principle today (And some may argue, still does).
We might note that #2-#10 was during the 1880s- 1940s, the first Nadir of US race relations.
I only learned about #1 and #4 in school. The rest were omitted.
Well, the civil rights fever in the 2010s is more about Sexual orientation. I wonder if we will see a Voting Rights act of 2056 to combat re-disenfranchisement.
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I would hope that the increase of multiracial groups would lead to the end of racism. However, look at South America which is filled with mixed raced populations. In South America, the large mixed race population still kept the dominant ideology of whiteness. Whiteness has always adjusted to incorporate newer groups. For instance, the Irish or the Italians. What makes people that think mixed race people still won’t keep the dominant white ideology in order to be incorporated for lovely life privileges? For instance, I see more black men dating white women but self hate is still prominent. If you marrying someone for “good hair” and a “good complexion” then it still fits the dominant ideology of whiteness. People have to make sure they are marrying for love not superficial reasons like purifying the race and more importantly they have to get re-educated in order to un colonize their Eurocentric minds. Re-education has to happen to all races, genders, classes, sexual orientations etc. You can be in an interracial relationship and still be a worshiper of whiteness because you don’t understand the complexity. Some people think just believing the ideology we are all equal is enough but it is not in systematic racism. The Tyra Banks show had an entire episode of mix race kids hating their black side and their nonwhite side. Same for a lot of Latinas who are historically mixed like I mentioned before. It takes a little more than jungle fever to cure racism.
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@Abagond,
After I sent the list to you, I found another article of the timeline for Chinese-Americans. We probably would need a separate one for Japanese-Americans and Filipino-Americans, who also have a long significant history in the USA.
http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/anti-Chinese-persecution-in-the-USA-history-timeline.htm
He does list his sources, but I cannot vet them all. But, I did not find anything that was actually wrong.
Some tidbits:
1565: Chinese and Filipinos first arrive to North America (in the post-Colombian era).
1854: Trans-pacific Slave trading of Chinese – this was after the trans-atlantic slave trade of Africans was abolished.
1871: The largest mob lynching in US history.
1940s: Native-born ethnic Chinese US citizens exceed foreign born
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It’s been happening in my family for generations: African, Choctaw, Cherokee, Cree, German, Irish, Chinese in Sunflower County, Mississippi.
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You’re from Sunflower County, Mississippi? I know there is some Choctaw and Chinese mixed into the Euro/African combination in that area. My cousins grew up in Greenwood.
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I just looked up Indianola. It still maintains segregated schools nearly 60 years after Brown vs. Board.
Gentry High School is 98% black; Indianola Academy is 98% white, down from 99.5% in 2010.
It seems that segregation academies are still common in the Mississippi Delta. It would be nice to see a post on that.
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Eggs for dinner and I just cracked open one with double yolks! [Yep, I am superstitious, and double yolks for me is a positive message from the Universe!] 😀
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Ha ha! I meant to post the above comment on the Open Thread! I don’t know how I landed here! LOL
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I had to come back and reread this thread. I agree with all ten of these power points. But unfortunately we are so divided as a nation I don’t know how people will come together to make this work. In theory this looks ideal. But unfortunately there are so many who don’t want to do the work to make these things a reality. That’s why it seems like something I know in my lifetime I will not see.
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@ Abagond
I want to live in your Dream.
This is the world I want to see.
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[…] multiracial frameIn “stuff” […]
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