Is Tom Hayden's dream coming true?

[Zalatix]

During his son's wedding he made some comment about the peaceful elimination of the white race. Is this inevitable?

Perhaps, but not in the way you're probably thinking... (hint: it won't be by violence or genocide)

http://news.yahoo.com/humans-eventually-look-brazilians-140349518.html

"The distance between the birthplaces of parents has continued to increase since the invention of the bicycle, making it now easy, if not standard, for parents to have been born on different continents," Stearns told Life's Little Mysteries.

Stearns says globalization, immigration, cultural diffusion and the ease of modern travel will gradually homogenize the human population, averaging out more and more people's traits. Because recessive traits depend on two copies of the same gene pairing up in order to get expressed, these traits will express themselves more rarely, and dominant traits will become the norm. In short, blue skin is out. Brown skin is in.

Already in the United States, another recessive trait, blue eyes, has grown far less common. A 2002 study by the epidemiologists Mark Grant and Diane Lauderdale found that only 1 in 6 non-Hispanic white Americans has blue eyes, down from more than half of the U.S. white population being blue-eyed just 100 years ago. [One Common Ancestor Behind Blue Eyes]

"The only explanation for the observed pattern that was consistent with the data (that we could think of) was that assortative mating had changed," Lauderdale told Life's Little Mysteries. Assortative mating is the tendency of people to mate with members of their same ancestral group — a tendency that has seemingly lessened over time. "This was consistent with a birth year-related increase in the proportions of individuals who listed more than one ancestry in the 1980 census."

[yawnmaster]

1. temporarily, perhaps, and not just the white race but others as well, and temporary because...

we are getting close to being able to manipulate human genes to the level that we can modify our phenotypical traits (eye color, skin color, height potential, susceptibility to disease, etc.).
And not just in the unborn but in many cases with adults by changing their existing genetic structure.
I don't mean screening the unborn either, I mean changing their genes as the parents (or some societal governing agency) wants.

The technology should be here within a generation...the ethics governing it, quite a bit later.

[randome]

2. So we'll all be colored according to the latest Spring fashions!

Yes, we will encounter many problems manipulating our genes. But it is inevitable that it happens. And, I think, in the end a good thing.

[Arugula Latte]

3. But, I like my blue skin!

[WinkyDink]

4. "the peaceful elimination of the white race"...(hint: it won't be by violence or genocide)

Uh...."peaceful" would preclude the need for that "hint."

[Zalatix]

6. Sometimes the redundancy is still not enough, sometimes it is.

Given my experience with human beings, I actually expected someone at some point to say "You must be implying GENOCIDE!!!" in response to this, despite the "peaceful" part.

It's like when my cousin went to the opthalmologist(sp?) for laser eye surgery and she had to read the warnings AND write it out because the doctor had previously gotten stung by people who didn't read or comprehend the disclaimers.

[pampango]

5. At least in the US, the taboos against interracial dating and marriage are crumbling, particularly

among the young. In every census the percentage of multiracial children increases. I imagine this is true in most other Western countries as well so the 'purity' of races will diminish over time.

Some fascinating quotes in the article:

"Because most immigrants to the U.S. are from Asia, Africa or Latin America, any trait that is more common in northern Europeans than in the rest of the world will get less common over the near future in the U.S. due to immigration," McDonald wrote in an email. "Examples would include red and blond hair, blue eyes, and freckles. Traits that are recessive and are more common in some groups than others will decrease due to blending; blue eyes, sickle cell anemia, and cystic fibrosis are examples of this."

According to Stearns, perfect homogenization of the human race will probably never occur, but in general, Earth is becoming more and more of a melting pot.

A population forged from the long-term mixing of Africans, Native Americans and Europeans serves as an archetype for the future of humanity, Stearns said..."

Changes in the ease of travel and the level of immigration have certainly changed the likelihood that one's parents were themselves born far from each other, even on different continents.

Thanks for the OP, Zalatix.