We who are involved in the multiracial movement know exactly what it is we’re fighting for. We are fighting to be liberated from the limitations imposed upon us by the Language of Power, that divides the world into two camps and then tells us all that we have to identify with one side (“black”) or the other (“white”), or we will be betraying “our own” (the latter being unspecified and free to choose, except as “blacks” are concerned). The Language of Power is a lingua franca spoken by all those whose interests are against our personal freedom to make choices -- based on our personal histories, observations and experiences -- for ourselves and our families. Every demagogue from Huey Long to Marcus Garvey to Governor Faubus to Al Sharpton has spoken that language. They are all fluent in it, and relentless in their persecution of anyone who dares to oppose their view of the universe, or to call things what they really are.

One of the stupidest conversations I ever had in my life was with an Englishwoman, an acquaintance here in Stockholm some years ago. (I hope I am not insulting my readers’ intelligence by relating this exchange, but it nevertheless is pertinent.) We were talking about the fact that so many of our friends had multiracial children, and what they should be called. I said I thought they should be called whatever they and/or their parents preferred. She then looked me deeply in the eyes and said “But a child with any negro blood is a negro.” I laughed, thinking about the decidedly Caucasian appearance of many of those kids. “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “No it’s not,” she countered. “Let’s say you have a cup of milk and a cup of ink. If you add milk to the ink, it’s still ink. But if you put ink in the milk, why...it’s no longer milk, simply.” At that point, I demurred and held my peace, knowing that an argument on a nitwit level like this could only be settled with a kalashnikov or a chain saw. Or both.

I maintain that there is no such thing as a “pure” race, certainly not among the peoples of the world who have not been painfully isolated due to geographical barriers -- and there are relatively few human families (ethnic groups) that fall into that category. The so-called “white” race is not a cup of milk, the crackpot Englishwoman’s skewed logic notwithstanding! Over the centuries, the Romans brought hundreds of thousands of blacks to Rome, both as allies and as slaves. Is anyone so bone-stupid as to believe that when the Roman Empire disintegrated, all those folks (and their mixed-race descendants) just dropped everything and got on a boat back home? Europe has had a liberal touch of the tar-brush since Antiquity, and later mixtures -- in the wake of the Moorish dominance of the Iberian Peninsula, the alliances of Christian knights in the Crusades in which Ethiopia played a considerable role (many Abyssinians rode north to Europe when the dust of war had settled, loath to be separated from their European comrades-in-arms), and finally, the short, and relatively painless term of black slavery in Europe (England, Holland, France, Spain and Portugal) -- have all contributed to Europe’s particular “nigger in the woodpile.” Alexandre Dumas, father and son, had negro blood, as did Russia’s greatest poet, Pushkin, who is considered Shakespeare’s only rival in European letters. Today, one of Pushkin’s descendants is a member of the British nobility, the Duchess of Marlborough. A renowned beauty, she doesn’t look the least bit like a cup of milk with ink in it.

“Whiteness” is in bad need of a complete overhaul. It needs to get out of the closet and stop pretending that it is something it most assuredly is not.

Not long ago, I read a delightful book called “Dear Me,” an autobiography. It was written by a man who describes himself as Russian, German, Ethiopian, Hungarian, and a couple of other things I can’t remember at the moment. The writer? Sir Peter Ustinov, one of the 20^th century’s most brilliant authors, actors and directors.

I somehow have the feeling that Sir Peter thinks of himself as multiracial, otherwise he would never have divulged to his world-wide reading public -- including Americans -- that he is part “black.” By American standards, after all, Sir Peter is “passing for white,” and we all know what a dreadful thing that is! Somehow though, the old dear seems to be going strong, secure in his position as one of the pillars of British cultural life and letters.

I’ll admit it, “multiracial” is a damned dangerous term. It’s an incendiary, seditious word, a word that could cause things to fall down. Indeed, it could create damage -- great damage! In particular, it could very well be used by subversives and degenerates to destabilise three of America’s most time-honoured sacred cows, to wit:

• The absolutely unquestionable truth of white superiority and purity of race

• The altogether undeniable proposition that there is, in fact, such a thing as racial purity, and that it is, in and of itself, a desirable thing

• The incontrovertible verity that anyone with any known negro ancestor is a negro (the one-drop rule)

My God, imagine if all of us suddenly got the notion to call ourselves “multiracial”? Not just mulattos and assorted half-breeds, but EVERYBODY! What if white girls, to make themselves more interesting on the dating-and-marriage market suddenly started calling themselves “multiracial” (leaning on the evidence of, say, a Polish-Italian-Irish background)? Where would all this lead?

And imagine the kids in school. The little girl, who is Japanese, Korean, Greek, Scottish and Egyptian, and the little boy, who is German, Swedish, French, Irish, African, Seminole and Cherokee, being asked “What are you?" And both giving the same answer “Multiracial” -- then the whole battle is lost for the racists of all colours, they simply wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Get a job, Al Sharpton!

This is the Third Millennium after the birth of Christ, the Lord I worship and revere. I know that we must hope for better things than we have created thus far: better social institutions, better political solutions, better ways of dealing with things like crime, disease and drugs, things that put us and our children at risk. But nothing could be more beneficial to our future than the idea that we belong to one race, the human race, and that that race is indeed “multiracial” in every aspect of its being. If that seems a paradox, I refer you to our Nation’s motto: “E pluribus unum.” In the new Millennium, that should apply to race as well: