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Beyond Race: The Bhagavad-Gita in Black and White

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Charles Michael Byrd (editor & publisher of INTERRACIAL VOICE) has finally done it! His first book breaks down the walls of "racial" group-think and exposes the extreme "racialism" of the "you must pick a race and be that" crowd to the harsh light of day. This book is highly recommended for those wishing to shed the shackles of "racial" group identity in favor of embracing their right to be an individual. If you're still lost in the prisons of an NAACP-approved mindset, pick up a copy and free yourself.

Charles Michael Byrd is to be congratulated on weaving what every man and woman ought to be doing in terms of "race consciousness" with the greater morality of the Bhagavad-Gita. The Melungeons, a mixed ethnic group, have lived with, and continue to struggle with, the issues presented and discussed so thoughtfully by Mr. Byrd. All human beings - not simply those who consider themselves :mixed-race" - owe the author a debt of gratitude.

The primary message of this excellent book is that people must learn to see beyond racial distinctions. The author particularly emphasizes the distortion of truth and the injustive of identifying people with that element of their heritage perceived (by some) as "lowest", especially "black" African heritage. Both "white" supremacists and the "black" movement castigate mixed-race "black"/"white" people who claim an identity other than "black"... meaning that they are apparently supposed to ignore their other heritage.

The author's ideal is that "race" should not matter at all. He makes the excellent point that "races" are imaginary constructs based only on superficial physical similarities. Modern nation-state-based "ethnicities" are similarly illusory, being legal fictions.

As an intermediary measure before a raceless soceity can really develop, the author would simply like to see mixed-race have the freedom to acknowledge what they really are, and not be forced to identify with one or anotehr of the "races" their ancestors may have been.

Mr. Byrd uses the Bhagavad-Gita, an important Hindu scripture, to make this point, as well as to show the real solution, which is to recognize that the real identify of all humans is that of the "race" of conscious beings. According to Krishna, in the Gita, the "soul" or the living being is the consciousness. When we collectively see this as the common characteristic between us, then the superficial characteristics of our, and our ancestors', bodies will cease to have any meaning.

I found BEYOND RACE to be thoroughly enjoyable and very important book. It will benefit anyone who reads it, but perhaps will resonate most strongly with those of us whose bodies are mixed-race. As a mestizo or metis who has studied the Gita for over ten years, I was delighted to find this book which so ably brings out an application of its teachings from this new perspective and remaining completely within the message of the Gita.

For many, Vedic wisdom seems too remote or detached from our western way of thinking to have much appeal or value. Mr. Byrd provides us with a valuable tool to help in our understanding of the Bhagavad-gita, by linking crucial passages with contemporary examples. Even though the focus of 'Beyond Race' is trancendence of race conciousness, it becomes readily apparent that the same principles may be applied to a great many other social ills. In a society so driven by the accumulation of material wealth, it is not surprising that a spiritual void exists. Thankfully, we are reaching a point where the quantum physicist and the yogi can find common ground. This fact tends to validate the author's approach. 'Beyond Race' is a book for humanity, and I recommend it be read slowly and thoughtfully in order to get the deeper meaning.

Beyond Race: The Bhagavad-gita in Black and White
by TDL Turner, M.A. [L.I.S.]
My thoughts about and reactions to Beyond Race: The Bhagavad-gita in Black and White, by
Charles Michael Byrd, were well clarified by my return from AMEA's (packed!& worth it!) National
Conference on "The Multiracial Child", in Tucson (AZ) (mid-October 2002). While those who have
done some comparative reading of major religious texts might find it academically "friendlier",
anyone in the habit of critical thinking and analysis also can glean from these pages.
As a fifth-generation member of brown, tan, and pink Moxhaccine* (Mestiza-Creole)
Multiracials my responses to certain sections were both experientially and academically triggered.
So-called " 'black' and `white' cultures" (pages 22-25; 28-29) were developed entirely to
perpetuate antagonistic, viciously greedy, destructive, anti-humane agendas throughout the past 4,500
years. Since these agendas=the "definitions", I tend towards not using such terms, preferring African
(Afroid) and European (Caucasoid). While both European and African heads of state used what
became "racially-based" slavery to fund and expand their political/military agendas, Arabic Islamic
"jihads" that resulted in the fall of Adoghast (ca.1066, ending phase I of the Akana-Ashanti Empire),
and successive rises/declines of Akan-Islamic medieval to [baroque] empires that included Mali,
Songhay and Kanem-Bornu, further fueled West African involvement in kidnapping and selling of
humans (ref: Basil Davidson; Leroy Brooks; Eva L.R. Meyerowitz).
I believe many black and brown Afro-North Americans rejected the term "African" because
they have not been able to socio-psychologically reconcile some of their African ancestors' collusion in
the mass kidnapping and slavery connected with "Diaspora". The combination of improperly taught
history and unacknowledged injustices has caused the social diseases of "White" so-called

"supremacy", "Black" distrust and alienation, "professional victims" and "police-state agendas".
The quote by William Xavier Nelson (I.V. "Point-Counterpoint" debate) (p. 68) perfectly
illustrates the fact we all know there is no [actual human organism] such as a "light-skinned black
person". That racist construct was invented to provide huge pools of share-croppers, slops-collectors,
sweat-shop and sex-trade workers. Many religions including traditional Hinduism have been used to

justify race-based socioeconomic stereotyping. During the late 1960's/early 1970's, to embellish
whatever their "politics" were for that day, both " `black' revolutionaries" and " `white'
Blavatsky-ites" prattled about the "superior" Aryans (actually from India!) defeating the "inferior"
Dravidians (also real Indians!). Thanks to the late Mohandis K. Ghandi, much of the caste system
this revolved around was de- constructed (pp: 30-40; 60-70; 115-120) . Sadly, I was reminded that the

devaluation of Aboriginal American spiritual consciousness consistently has paralleled the spiritual
decline of not only the Western Hemisphere, but of the entire world.
As a *Moxhaccine (Mestiza-Creole) Multiracial, half of my history is indigenously North
American. I am pleased that Byrd stated terms such as "Mulatto/ Quadroon/ Octaroon" are
considered obsolete and "offensive", particularly since both Mestizo/a and Creole legitimately,
traditionally have represented many diverse Western Hemisphere populations of (obviously "mixed")
appearance. In future, I recommend inclusion of our term "Moxhaccine" (also "new and not widely
used") representing both hereditary and contemporary North American Aboriginal/First Nations
peoples mixed with Afro-European (often including "Semitic") (pp: 136-46; 149-50).
Review submitted by:
Ms. TDL Turner, M.A. [L.I.S.]
Founder/Coordinator
M.O.X.H.C.A. (AMEA'S Canadian-affiliate)
Edmonton, AB, Canada

Charles Michael Byrd, successful editor and publisher of the cyber-journal INTERRACIAL VOICE, has penned this short book with a purpose which, at first glance, appears to be a distilling of Indian Vedic scriptures and their applicability to providing a solution to the problems associated with a combative social system in the United States which is based on membership in "black" and "white" "racial" groups defined as such by rules which seem to guarantee their perpetuity. Eighteen chapters are offered in which a Vedic lesson is presented--each lesson is designed to be a springboard to writings of Mr. Byrd as he argues for an end to "race" consciousness, along the lines of the particular lesson. Many of such writings are taken from editorials and messages contained in INTERRACIAL VOICE over the years. The book ends with a speech given by Mr. Byrd at the 20 July 1996 MULTIRACIAL SOLIDARITY MARCH held in Washington, D.C.

Writing about "race" in the United States has long been the charge of academically-based social scientists. The first thing which should be said about this book is that it is not a social science work in the classic sense: with an emphasis on "objectivity" and a collection of "racial" data presented in an unemotional, passionless manner. Mr. Byrd minces no words in letting the reader exactly know how he feels about the present-day "racial" landscape in the United States, especially with regard to the line of demarcation between "white" and "black" North Americans. The reader, therefore, will not close this book armed with a great deal more quantitative data about North American "racial" groups. The reader will, however, be exposed to a mindset he or she may not have known existed, for Mr. Byrd is writing AS A MULTIRACIAL PERSON, not as a disinterested observer (such as the Swede, Gunnar Myrdal, who, as an outsider, described the "American Dilemma" in the 1940s).

And just WHAT is that multiracial mindset? That is for the reader to explore by reading BEYOND RACE. I can, however offer this: Mr. Byrd's view has an emphasis on joining and uniting; joining and uniting with the entire human family and it is perhaps Mr. Byrd's overwhelming personal sentiment in doing so which has led him to the Bhagavad-gita.

An accurate accounting and description of a mere two of the forces arrayed against humans creating societies of goodwill: (a) unbridled greed (often manifested in monopoly capitalism) and (b) religious and ethnic fanaticism, should have most of us fearful for the future, as we move further into the new millenium. The United States is (or should be) a force for the betterment of mankind. Mr. Byrd implies, on pages 72 and 73, that America certainly has that potential. Yet, the specters of "racialist" thinking, "race" hatred and "racial" and ethnic balkanization threaten America's ability to create more equality for its people. According to Professor John E. Farley of Southern Illinois University, racism has devastating effects on not only U.S productivity but on America's conception of itself as a unified nation. And warring "racial" factors will never unite to confront a U.S. class system which is becoming more and more oppressive and more prone to monopoly capitalism.

Yes, the U.S. has the potential to be a force for good, but the United States will never do its fair share in bringing people together if it remains in dis-union as a nation of separate "races", especially "races" meant to be exclusive of each other. That is why, although Charles Michael Byrd is writing about Indian Vedic scriptures, the reader will soon sense that he is.....a citizen of the United States of America with an American Plea for the Human Family.