miscegeny - the word is not negative in meaning (despite the closeness in sound to misogyny). Misc - is a root for mixture. Geny -
genes. A mixture of genes: anathema to some; a future-oriented hope for some and for most not even a thought.
My friend, Monique had a word for it - "au-gratin". She was from New Orleans and of mixed heritages and she used this word to describe mixtures - like in the Tom Waits song "...half puertorican-chinese" as "au-gratin". She never explained what she meant but in her mouth it was a label of pride. I guess something about browning cheese filled potatoes... better than the tired phrase 'melting pot'
The word does not imply a lack of racism and the 'future -oriented hope' is hopefully not just blindness and it's not a promise of salvation or a return to the garden. And in my own experience it is certainly clouded with forms of racism, orientalism and agorophobia...
but i think the desire at it's root is perhaps in orientation with the motto Marx quotes from Latin: Nihil humanum mi alienarum puto. I know I have it wrong here - I will find it and correct it. But the gist is "Nothing human is strange to me" or "No human is alien to me". Clearly a motto I break at least five times by the time I've finished my coffee on the PATH train into midtown Manhattan. It's not always happy mixtures and a morning subway ride is a good analogy to such annoyances.
But there is something socially theraputic in being forced together like this. When we meet again on the elevator or street, I'll be less likely to shrink away and grab my purse in white knuckled fear (metaphorically speaking)...
What does this word describe and what is about it that makes the Ashcrofts', the Falwells' and the Helms' jaws tighten so visibly? (A recent Harper's index stated that 2/5ths of the voters in a southern state had voted to make interracial marriages invalid.) Why is it a threat? I go for stretches of time without thinking of such questions. But inevitably they come back when my wife and I are looked at askance or I read a related news article...
But this is not just about interracial marriage or race relations in general. We have the experts, PhDs and politicians to speak of such things. More of an ineluctable question is intended. Maybe (hopefully) akin to Marx's quote and George Clinton's series of answers to the refrain "What is Soul?" on the Funkadelic album: "Soul is a hamhock in your cornflakes...etc"
miscegeny - I just like the sound of the word. as far as I know it is not a real word - miscegenation is the proper form. But miscegeny sounds more like a state of being or a password for a society in a state of us-them warfare like in that Margaret Atwood novel of an anglo-christian dystopia. Yes, perhaps a password...