For some people, identifying themselves as more than one race matters little if Americans tend to put people in either the “Black” or “White” categories. Former President Barack Obama, who has a White mother though he identifies as Black, has described being mistaken for a waiter or parking valet before he was famous.
“I am a White woman who married a Black man and had a Black baby,” said Amanda Lewis, a sociologist who runs the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
“That’s the way others see her. That’s the way we think of her,” Lewis said of her daughter. “The opposite doesn’t happen. Instead of trying to make White people more comfortable, we need to embrace the multiracial democracy we’ve become.”
Tim Henderson, “Multiracial Residents Are Changing the Face of the US,” Stateline, May 13, 2022. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/05/13/multiracial-residents-are-changing-the-face-of-the-us.
Tags: Amanda Lewis, Pew Charitable Trusts, Stateline, Tim Henderson