
PP-
Well put. We have to actively fight the notion that American = white. |
So what do you consider your child to be? White? Asian? Something else? |
I refer to myself and my kids as "multi-ethnic" or "multi-racial". My mother is Asian, and my father is Jewish. DH is Anglo-Saxon/caucasian. |
white Iranian? huh? |
God, where do I even start. So you say your child is white even though her father is Indian and this is ok with him? And you might change that later on if it benefits her in regards to school? WOW. Did it ever occur to you that being bi-racial/multi-cultural might and appreciating it and learning about it might benefit her. What about when she is older and trying to form her own racial identity. Surely she is aware that both of her parents aren't white. How is saying she is white embracing it? And as far as who cares....maybe biracial people- like your daughter. |
I was thinking same thing because when I lived in Britain for years, I often heard Iranians refer to themselves as "black". Including the head of the Black Police Union. Whereas many of my Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi friends referred to themselves as South Asian. Despite being a heck of a lot darker than the Persians. Go figure. But here in the States we see things differently because it's a different culture. |
Bi-racial implies white and something else, right? In DC there is a particular irony that school forms don't reflect more than one race (yet) given the status of the POTUS, the Mayor and Chancellor's children. Is it kosher to check 3 of the mutually exclusive boxes AND other? I write in "mixed heritage". Good enough for Obama, works for me as a half-rican. ITA with pp caution against saying "half". I got lots of twisted questions about which half resulted in which feature. (Ugh.) I plan to coach my even more mixed kids to appreciate that they are ___, ___ AND ____. They have more heritages in total. Not parts of them for certain cultures. Fingers crossed it works for them. |
Ask the sociologist/anthropologist on this board, but it seems to me that 'race' is mostly defined by 'what you look like' regardless of genetic similarity or dissimilarity from someone of a different 'race.' So the darker you are, the more obviously/physically different you are--in a superficial sense--from someone who is very light and vice versa. So given that dark-skin and light-skin are so different (again, superficially speaking), but certain asian complexions and white/caucasian complexions are not so different... which may be informing your idea that you and your child's father are more (superficially) similar than different, and therefore 'bi-racial' just seems to be a silly use of the term.
Just a gander into your thought process. ![]() |
While many people equate bi-racial with "half-white and half-something-else" this is inaccurate. Bi-racial or multi-racial means anyone whose parents identify as being of different races (or having one or two parents who identify as bi/multi-racial themselves). So, a child who is mixed black/Asian is bi-racial. Even people who are of different ethnicities that are often grouped together under a larger "umbrella race" would consider themselves bi-racial, such as Chinese and Indian. So, it does not necessitate that their be white European ancestry... this is just wrongly assumed because we equate "white" with "normal" in our society. |
I agree with your point on Iranians in the UK. However Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi people were just referred to as Asians while Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese were referred to as Oriental or just all were considered Chinese. It would bug my Korean DH to no end when people would try their Chinese language skills on him but he wasn't offended when he was called Oriental since it wasn't used in a derogatory way. |
Except it isn't good enough for Obama and he only marked African American on the census. |
Or maybe Obama identifies as African-American based on his cultural and life experiences, as is his right. |
I think of "biracial" as having parents of two (or more) different races, regardless of what those races are. And I have a number of friends whose babies fit this description - white/black, white/asian, white/indian, white/hispanic, white/middle eastern, black/asian, black/hispanic, hispanic/asian... you get the idea. I think it's probably good for the population - it's the opposite of in-breeding, which can cause certain diseases after a few generations. |
I was with you up until your last statement... it is not "good for the population". Nor is it bad. It's just what is. Most of us are the byproducts of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity parents anyway, even though most of us don't realize it. Bi-racial is exactly how you described it, but let's not add strange social value judgments to things that should be left to be. People should marry who they love and who they choose to regardless of its perceived value to society. |
Except it isn't good enough for Obama and he only marked African American on the census. What I meant was that Obama has identified himself as an African American of a mixed heritage. This is a way of showing ownership over your own identity. Black-White biracials in this country are often tagged as either not black enough (by other AAs) or not really black by ignorant people of all types. Like Obama, after a lifetime of stupid questions, I now choose to identify myself as an African-American and recognize my mixed heritage. I'm thinking of call my tri-racial children Ambi-Ethnic. Ethnically ambidexterous instead of ethnically ambiguous. ![]() |