Taftotita

When Obama supporters speak approvingly of the senator’s ability to “transcend” race — races? — I think I agree, although I’m not convinced that that’s the best choice of words to describe what it is I think they’re describing.

A while ago in the Athens News, in an essay about Greece’s ‘official’ minorities in western Thrace — and what they are and are not allowed to call themselves – Brady Kiesling wrote something almost perfect about multiple identities in theory vs. practice. Based on my own slightly more complicated experience I think he got it exactly right:

As the U.S. Embassy human rights officer, I was once dragged to the Foreign Ministry behind Ambassador Sotirhos to be scolded for the State Department’s annual human rights report. By criticizing official mistreatment of Muslims in Western Thrace and Slav speakers in Macedonia, we had implied that Turkish and Macedonian minorities existed in Greece. Staring at the floor I mumbled that neither the Greek state nor the U.S. State Department had any right to decide who existed and who didn’t.

As individual citizens we follow conscience and self-interest in asserting whichever of our multiple political and social identities is most appropriate in a given context. Waiting in line for a driver’s license in Houston, I was a tall Texan again after 46 years. Under other circumstances I identify myself as an American citizen, a Californian, a would-be archaeologist, a dissident diplomat, a lapsed Catholic, or a resident of Plaka. In peaceful times, these segmented loyalties are an advantage. The price I pay for them is that, should I need rescuing, no group will feel any obligation to invade the Plaka on my behalf.

This is why, I think, the idea of percentages and the use of hyphens are worse than useless for understanding this sort of thing. I could go on and on about this, but not now.

By the way, everyone should buy his book, which is a masterpiece. I typically read appx. two books per week, and that book was easily the finest thing I’d read on any topic in five years. As I’ve never met Mr. Kiesling, and have no connections to him, my enthusiastic endorsement is disinterested.

-max mason