20
ISSUES: Racial & Ethnic Discrimination
Chapter 1: Racism & discrimination
Six things I wish people understood about
being biracial
By JenéeDesmond-Harri
A
ccording to the results of a DNA
test I took recently, my ancestors
on my father’s side are mostly
from West Africa (via Arkansas), and
the ones on my mom’s side come from
Europe. When strangers inquire about
my racial background, I tend to try to
de-escalate their interest. I say things
like, “I'm just your run-of-the-mill mixed
person with a white mom and a black
dad.” In other words: nothing super
exotic. Nothing to see here.
Why am I so dismissive? I’m a little self-
conscious about engaging in excessive
navel-gazing regarding my racial
identity. It hasn’t been particularly
difficult for me to manage. If anything,
it may have made life easier for me and
meant I’ve encountered less racism
than people who have two parents
who identify as black. I definitely don’t
consider myself a “tragic mulatto.”
And with nine million Americans
selecting more than one race on the
last Census – not tomention a president
who has a white mother and a black
father – it’s hard to argue that being
“mixed”, “multiracial” or “mulatto” (I’ve
been called all of those) in 2015 is really
all that unusual.
But I can’t deny that as long as race and
racism are hot topics in our culture,
biracial and multiracial people will
continue to be a source of curiosity
and fascination. Confession: even I
find myself looking a little longer at
mixed-race families on the streets of
Washington, DC, craning my head
to see which parent the children
resemble most and wondering how
they’ll see themselves. As a writer, I’ve
been amazed by the way articles about
interracial couples, families or biracial
children intrigue readers every single
time. My guess is that it’s because
these stories provide fodder for people
to grapple with the nuances of their
own identities and push the limits of
racial categories, which is itself sort of
fascinating.
So there’s nothing wrong with
the continued curiosity about the
experience
of
biracial
people – whether
their
parents
identify
as black and white or some other
combination society sees as interesting
– but there are a few things I’d like
people to know about those of us who
are living it.
1) “Blewish”, “Blexican”, “just
human”: what we call ourselves
is idiosyncratic
Biracial people might call themselves
black, white, Asian, Latino, mixed,
a “rainbow baby”, “just human”, a
“person of color”, “Blewish”, “Blexican”
or some other label they’ve concocted
that perfectly describes their self-
conception. This choice might be a
political statement, into which they’ve
put a lot of thought and energy. But it’s
just as likely to be a simple reflection of
what sounds and feels right to them at
a particular point in their life, or that it
reflects an early internalisation of how
other people saw them.
Regardless, the labels we choose aren’t
about you, and while you’re definitely
entitled to think of us in whatever way
makes sense to you, you don’t get a
vote when it comes to how we identify.
Even if you’re one of our parents.
I’m lucky that my mother and father
have always understood this. They
completely deferred to me, from the
time I was a child who shunned racial
labels altogether (because I’d picked up
on the idea that they were taboo, and
I didn’t want to stand out as different),
to
when
in high school
I made friends with
three other girls who had families just
like mine and we — I cringe writing
this — called ourselves “Halfricans,” to
when I went to Howard University, a
historically black college, and decided
that being biracial was just one way of
being black.
I definitely don’t consider
myself a “tragic mulatto”
I’ve noticed that some people are
much less tolerant. They get tied
up in knots when people identify in
ways that don’t square with their own
worldviews or racial maths. Check the
comments on any article that refers to
Obama as the first black president, and
you’ll find someone lamenting that
he is just as much white as he is black
– half and half! – and it doesn’t make
sense to call him African-American.
But he’s chosen a descriptor that
reflects his life experience, and, hard
as it is for some to accept, we don’t
get to dictate what other people call
themselves.
The same deference should be given
to those who identify as black and
white, or black and Asian, or Asian
and Latino, or some other combination,
refusing to choose only one label or
tick only one box. It’s really important
to some biracial people that all parts
