Talk:Racial transformation

Half of the East Asian population have upper eyelid crease. By undergoing surgery to create one for the rest of them does not mean that they want to be viewed as someone from another ethnicity.

--Eraser78 02:43, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Course: R1A Section: 12 Topic: the nth race: introduction to transraciality Instructor: Joon Lee Time: TTh 11-12:30 Location: 258 Dwinelle Course Control #: 28436

Course Description:

"The first birth is often a failure." Anaïs Nin

Thanks to "advances" in medical and psychiatric technology, we are now able to view gender as a transformative aspect of life: we are not stuck in the sexed body with which we were born. However, our racial identity is still something that seems biologically inescapable, in spite of the now very rich and convincing theoretical history of its constructed, non-essential nature. While the history of transsexualism is marked by the potentially political affect of social transgression, the history of transraciality speaks to us from advertisements for skin-blanching creams, history-denying acts of racial passing, and community-betrayal. Why else the negative reaction-from disgust to ridicule-to Michael Jackson’s plastic surgery escapades? This is, however, contrary to the everyday experience which finds that individual and group racial identification is a process which is necessarily transracial: in declaring ourselves racially, we all cross boundaries set by societies contemporary and past. In this course, we will attempt to produce an idea of idea of race based on the best of transsexualism. The "race" produced thus, like the "third" gender produced by transsexuality, will lead to a complication of existent preconceptions about racial stereotypes and formation.

From Courses at Berkeley. The user DyslexicEditor found this interesting course description and I believe that a large part of it should be intergrated into the article as well as mentioning that courses are being taught in this field and that many people are awaiting the day they can change their appearence as they can currently change their gender.

Is there an article on a completely changable body? Several science fiction stories have it so you can choose your apperance either or both because of technology to manulate matter or because they exist in a virtual reality. I find the difficult part is coming up with a concrete article name, often the concept is not precisely defined although it exists. --ShaunMacPherson 18:21, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The topic is fascinating. The entry, on the other hand, is a POV mess. Also, I think there should be some information on intentional "passing" here. 71.154.4.121 (talk) 17:33, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

One Cleanup: Find Name of movie

The article says, "In another example, there was a movie where a Caucasian man took skin tanning pills to pose as African American so he could get a scholarship to college." Well, this movie sounds familiar, I think it was late 80s or early 90s, but does anyone know the name? DyslexicEditor 05:53, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I remember this movie as well. It is old as I remember not watching it in its entirety but it being on the movie network with my guess being around 1985. I am fairly confident it is a 1980's movie if that helps. --ShaunMacPherson 29 June 2005 12:43 (UTC)

With the help of smeghead from I2P he was able to come up with the name of the movie which was Soul Man from 1986 found here on the IMdb. I'll add it to the article. --ShaunMacPherson 29 June 2005 12:56 (UTC)

Page moved

I moved the page from Transracial to Transracial transformation, because an adjective by itself should not be used as an article title, and it looks like the page should have been called transracial transformation anyway, based on the first sentence in the article. --Idont Havaname 30 June 2005 19:48 (UTC)

Should it be racial transformation then, what is the trans in transracial? --ShaunMacPherson 3 July 2005 09:39 (UTC)

Transracial is the official term for Michael Jackson's racial transformation. WpediaIsNotPaper 3 July 2005 14:13 (UTC)

Racial transformation is an acceptable name to me, and it emphasizes that the article is not just about Michael Jackson. Google hits, for one, certainly favor it (900+ for "racial transformation", vs. 5 - one of which is this article - for "transracial transformation"). Maybe it would be best to call the article racial transformation, with the other as a redirect. Redirects are cheap, anyway. Any other thoughts on that? --Idont Havaname 3 July 2005 20:32 (UTC)

The current name (transracial transformation) is extremely redundant, IMO. --Thorns Among Our Leaves 9 July 2005 19:06 (UTC)

Page moved again!

Ok, now the page has been moved a second time, and I've fixed the redirects to transracial and Transracial transformation so that they all point here. So now hopefully most people are happy. If necessary, we can disambiguate Transracial to also include stuff like transracial adoption, if anyone creates an article on that. (If so, just let me know on my talk page and I'll fix the necessary links.) --Idont Havaname 19:33, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

How about other examples like Cher? A lot of people believe she has had extensive plastic surgery. Recent publicity photos show her with bleached blonde hair, blue eyes and lighter skin. Completely the opposite to her natural mediterranean looks. Not to mention she was concerned early in her career over the race factor on success.

I also have photos of some former Arabic oil merchant who went through extensive surgery after his divorce. He has appeared on a UK talk show. The photos suggest he wants to be a blonde Englishman. If anyone wants to see, let me know.

Also we should take note that Michael Jackson still has obvious signs of African-American appearance, notably the black hair and his black eyes. Unlike other African-Americans, he has never bleached his hair nor worn coloured contact lenses. This would be an obvious approach for someone truely transracial. He does not appear Caucasian due to his hair and eyes. He is arguably more Hispanic, Asian or Mediterranean in appearance than Caucasian.

Racism should be a big issue with this topic. Society and the media have long glamorised white people. Even to this day you will find blonde, blue eyed, white people commonly playing the lead roles in films and brunettes, Blacks, Asians etc playing mere supporting roles. Hip Hop and R&B music has glamorised African-American appearance, leading to something else.

My transformation

I am in the process of transitioning to Black, and have already started tattooing my skin brown. If I had the money, I would get surgeries to give me a flatter and broader nose, larger cheeks, and fuller lips. Breast and buttock implants may help. One of the hardest aspects is changing the accent of my voice. I have been at this for at least a year. I would not mind somehow documenting my experiences, and I am willing to help with this project.--74.124.187.76 (talk) 19:51, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Added Info

I added some information to the cosmetic sections. While it is arguable that whites may be looking for an ethnic appearance in tanning, it is really hard to apply duality to this matter (which looks like it being done). The reasons black people (especially in the Americas) have skin whitened as mentioned are for reasons of assimilation, changing racial identities, ect. The reasons whites are doing it (even if to look darker) rarely involves attempting to change their racial identity. Therefore, while they may be trying to alter their physical appearance, the intent of changing race or ethnicity generally isn't there.

i totally agree. I wanted to had a text about it, but someone changed it.

here is what I wanted to add:

Some consider tanning as an attempt to attain an ethnic skin color. However, tanning is a natural process, especially for European peoples in summer (unlike skin whitening, which is unnatural). What is more, European people who are willing to get a tan are never trying to adopt other non-eureopean features such as black eyes and hair (unlike some non-European people who also want to get straight hair, use color lenses and sometimes even ressort to surgery to erase their ethnic features). What is more, it is not widely promoted in magazines (mainly for health reasons) unlike white transformation in minority magazines and media. It is more a seasonnable fashion, since European people are not willing to keep their tan all year long but merely keep their natural skin color after summer, unlike whitening creams users who ressort to lightening products all year long.

I hope the person who removed it will come here and discuss, since I can perfectly explain it all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.167.84.2 (talk) 09:45, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Another point though is it isn't appropriate to say that people who are considered white can't have dark complexions. As though it is an ethnic feature. The definition of ethnic really can be open ended too. It doesn't necessarily mean non-white. As I mentioned there, many white southern Europeans and white Latin Americans have olive skin complexions (or what some call tan skin complexions). Tom72.185.162.37 (talk) 15:10, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Tanning

In the article it's said that tanning is a natural process... Yes, originally tanning is natural, but at the end of the day it's just a desired change of the optical appearance. Take a look at thousands of people visiting tanning salons every day: This has nothing more to do with a natural process. People are visiting solariums to change the colour of their skin. It does not only happen by accident when people stay in the sun for a possibly too long time, but it happens also intentionally thus I think it should be metionend. Also Consider, there are many tanning products availaible, not only sun tanning. Would anybody mind if I amended that? MrPalpatine (talk) 16:24, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

"Cleopatra played by a white actress"

Cleopatra was a North African. The US Census definition of white "people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa". So, ancient Egyptians were white. Anyway, Cleopatra was of Greek descent, so even if ancient Egyptians weren't white, Greeks sure are, so Cleopatra was. So is having a "white actress" playing Cleopatra really a case of "racial transformation"? Of course, she probably had a Mediterranean appearance, and the actress who played her may have looked more Northern European — but is that a "racial" difference or a "subracial" difference? By at least some definitions of race, e.g. the US Government's definition, it was not a racial difference, just a subracial one. 60.225.114.230 (talk) 21:01, 11 April 2012 (UTC)