My self-designation: Black with Access to Residual White Privilege (BWATRWP).Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2013-02-25 00:50Z by Steven |
…I don’t believe multi-racial makes sense by my understanding of race. Race is socially constructed and “multi-racial” seems to assume that race is biological: if parents are of different then the kid is “mixed”. But that is not how race works. Race is constructed through law, history, culture, practice, custom, etc.
“Black” does not designate having two parents who are both “un-mixed” descendants of Africa and African diaspora. “Black” [is] derived from society. There is no “mixed race” history, institutions, cultural practices. There are mixed race [people] who are part of all these, but no group history. I believe all people can self-identify themselves in ways that feel comfortable and honest, but the social/political part is bigger. I have a white mother and black father, but this doesn’t make me mixed race. Race is not biology. In USA this combo makes me black.
My self-designation: Black with Access to Residual White Privilege (BWATRWP)…
Eddings, Jeff, “Princeton Professor tweets about her views on mixed-race identity,” Mixed Child: The Pulse of the Mixed Community, (July 27, 2009). http://www.mixedchild.com/NEWS/August2009/Princeton_Professor.htm or http://coleridgehead.blogspot.com/2009/07/melissa-harris-lacewell-on-race.html.