An excellent piece and one I wish every US citizen would read. One additional point: I’m fascinated by the fact the when Europeans colonized the Americas, Catholics and Protestants treated this issue of race/ethnicity differently. The Venezuelan viewpoint described here was common to all areas colonized by Catholics, including Louisiana where the mixed race population has long been far greater than in the old Anglo-Protestant south. Protestants, often Puritanical in their beliefs, tended to oppose miscegeny far more vehemently and forebade intermarriage. I believe this holds up historically, but I’d be interested to know what knowledgeable historians make of this.