[FOUNTAIN]Racial diversity is healthy

Did Julia Roberts kiss Denzel Washington in the movie “The Pelican Brief?”
No.
In an interview with Newsweek in 2002, Ms. Roberts said she wanted her character in “The Pelican Brief” to kiss the reporter played by Mr. Washington, but he wanted the scene cut out. While Ms. Roberts was fine with the kiss, Mr. Washington was not. Because he was afraid of upsetting the female African American audience. He had a bitter experience before. In the 1989 film “The Mighty Quinn,” he had love scenes with the actress Mimi Rogers. The protest of the black female fans completely ruined the movie’s premiere. Ever since that incident, Mr. Washington refrained from shooting interracial love scenes. The idea of championing pure blood often leads to discrimination.
Scientist Gregory Cochran studied the genetic effect of pure blood. By surveying Jewish family lineage, he found that the IQ of medieval Jews was 12 to 15 points above average. The Jews, who were prohibited from owning land at the time, had to work in finance and trade, and those professions often require high IQs. To survive, some Jews had more children; one could argue that their strong financial skill was genetic or learned. However, pure blood lineage can extract a toll. Incurable genetic diseases can be inherited, including hereditary disorders such as Gaucher disease and Niemann-Pick disease.
In the book “Breeding Between the Lines: Why Interracial People are Healthier and More Attractive,” Alon Ziv, a former biology professor, writes, “Get ready for a mixed-race explosion.”
The mixed race is the great trend in the globalized era. The Caucasian population had made up 79.6 percent of the population in the United States, but the number dropped to 69.1 percent in 2000. Look at San Francisco. It is a vibrant melting pot that rivals the United Nations. Since American football star Hines Ward made news on interracial issues, Koreans are changing their perceptions of mixed race more and more.
The politicians, however, sometimes regress to the pure-blood concept. To some politicians, pure blood means having the same regional, family and academic background. A few days ago, former president Kim Dae-jung visited the South Jeolla Provincial Office and wrote, “No Honam, No Nation.” He hurriedly added that it was a quotation of Yi Sun-sin, a great admiral during Joseon Dynasty, but it would have been more appropriate if he had advocated harmony of the entire nation and written, “No Mixed Blood, No Nation.”

*The writer is a deputy business news editor at the JoongAng Ilbo.

by Yi Jung-jae