The End Of Race Olson Analysis

Journalist Steve Olson expresses his views of racial and cultural identity in The End of Race: Hawaii and the Mixing of Peoples. The belief of a complete end to race is absurd to many, but Olson states “When we look at another person, we won’t think Asian, black, or white. We’ll just think: person.” (Olson p.261) Ultimately cultures will never die, we will always have an individual race with different backgrounds and heritages, but the global mindset of judging and categorizing people in groups based on their outward appearance will soon come to an end. Generally, when race is the topic, immediately what comes to mind is the skin tone of a particular person, or certain facial characteristics they might have. However, the Bible tells us that
It’s amazing how ethnicities with minor differences have developed hate towards each other over time. However, the United States and some other countries are trying to stop such wars and hate crimes being committed between different groups. Slowly but surely people are starting to come to the realization, that despite any difference in backgrounds, race, or religion we are all equals. The perspective on race is changing rapidly right before our eyes. Intermarriages are becoming more popular and very common to see on an everyday basis, but no time soon will this eliminate race as a whole, “Five hundred years from now, unless human societies undergo drastic changes, Asians, Africans, and Europeans will be physically distinguishable.” (Olson p.260) The people of this world will always look different from one another, nothing can change that, but the mixing of these people is doing something much more powerful. Socially, intermarriage has created an idea that you can designate your own race based on the individuals’ personality because with the different races merged together, who is to determine what race you really are.”Joshua Goldstein calculated that about 20 percent of Americans are already in extended families with someone from a different racial group.” (Olson p.252) Many people don’t realize that they are already mixed and have family members of different ethnic background.”The logical endpoint of this perspective is a world in which people are free to choose their ethnicity regardless of their ancestry.” (Olson p.261) People should have the right to pronounce themselves in any ethnicity that is most closely related to how they perceive themselves. The people of Hawaii are moving beyond concepts of race and the rest of the world is soon to follow. “Many prospective students at the University of Hawaii simply mark “mixed” in describing