{"id":13206,"date":"2013-04-02T04:08:33","date_gmt":"2013-04-02T04:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=13206"},"modified":"2015-09-16T18:18:20","modified_gmt":"2015-09-16T18:18:20","slug":"in-living-colors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=13206","title":{"rendered":"In Living Colors"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Living Colors<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

B.L.A.C. Detroit: Black Life, Arts and Culture Magazine<\/a>
\nFebruary 2011<\/p>\n

Jared A. Ball<\/a><\/strong>, Associate Professor of Communication Studies
\nMorgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland<\/em><\/p>\n

[Listen to the interview with Jared Ball and Lori Robinson on WDET in Detroit on 2011-02-01\u00a0here<\/a>.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Black man with a White mother examines the concept of multiracial identity\u2014past, present and future<\/em><\/p>\n

What are you?<\/p>\n

I have been asked this question for so long, some might think I should be over it. I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n

Not because I mind answering it. In fact, I often enjoy the reactions my answers get. \u201cYou ever read James Forman\u2019s \u201cThe Making of Black Revolutionaries?\u201d I at times reply. \u201cWell, my autobiography would be called \u201cThe Making of a Black, African, Pan-Africanist, Nationalist, Communist, Revolutionary, Son of a Jew.\u201d Or I might simply say, \u201cI\u2019m from the Punchdummiesinthemouth people.\u201d<\/p>\n

At age 39, I\u2019m not over the question because of the arrogance and derision that commonly accompanies it. There is often a sense of entitlement, even obligation, to have my identity made known. How dare I not be easily classifiable by onlookers? In the United States, everyone is expected to fit neatly into a racial box\u2014which influences your economic, professional and educational opportunities, for better or worse.<\/p>\n

In 2011, the color line W. E. B. Du Bois<\/a> spoke of, rather than dissipating, has evolved into a multiplicity of color lines. Though these lines are intertwining and merging with increasing frequency, they remain firm boundaries determining the lived experiences of millions of people.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Freman Hendrix<\/a> was raised in segregated Inkster<\/a> by his Black father and White mother\u2014the only White person in their community. \u201cWalking down the street is where you get your identity,\u201d says the 60-year-old former chair of the Detroit Charter Commission. \u201cWe don\u2019t have signs on us telling [people] who we are. It\u2019s how other people react to you that tells you who you are.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s na\u00efve for kids to assume a multiracial identity,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Nineteen-year-old Karima Ullah couldn\u2019t disagree more.<\/p>\n

Ullah, of Oak Park<\/a>, is the daughter of a Bengali mother and a father who has one White parent and one Black parent. For her, being multiracial means being beyond categorization. She rejects entirely the notion of having to choose one racial identity over another. \u201cBe who you are,\u201d she says. \u201cBe a person.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…We may be experiencing a generational shift in the self-identification of children born to parents of different races. After all, it was only one decade ago that Americans had the option to choose more than one racial category when filling out a Census Bureau form. For the record, I checked the African-American box in 2000 and 2010…<\/p>\n

…Jared Sexton<\/a>, 36, is the director of the African American Studies Program at the University of California, Irvine. His mom is Irish American and his dad is African American. \u201cWhy do those who can want to identify as other than Black? Because this nation remains fundamentally anti-Black and continues to associate Blackness with an absence of humanity,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

On the West Coast, people have attempted to refuse to allow Sexton to identify as Black. On more than one occasion, he\u2019s heard, \u201cNo, you can\u2019t be.\u201d People have also guessed that he is Latino or Filipino. On the East Coast\u2014he was raised in Rochester, N.Y.<\/a>\u2014people frequently assume he is Puerto Rican…<\/p>\n

…\u201cWe have a right to identify as we choose,\u201d says Sexton. He chooses to self-identify as Black because he thinks multiracial identity contributes to a denial of White supremacy and anti-Black sentiments…<\/p>\n

…Says Hendrix, Black-White identity is different from other mixed-race identities. Sexton agrees, attributing this difference to the lingering negative connotations of Blackness…<\/p>\n

…Detroit<\/a> native writer and filmmaker dream hampton<\/a> rejects the concepts of a post-racial America and the tendency to self-identify as biracial or multi-racial.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother is White. My father and stepfather, who both raised me, are Black,\u201d she says. \u201cI have never been mistaken for White.\u201d She wants no part of what she calls the \u201canything-but-Black multi-racial movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Says hampton, \u201cThe Census should simply have a \u2018not Black\u2019 box\u201d so that those seeking an out from the perception of Black as \u201ccode for criminal and poor\u201d can simply take it. She acknowledges that her acceptance of the \u201cone drop\u201d rule<\/a>, or what scholars refer to as the practice of hypodescent<\/a>\u2014the adoption of the identity of the subordinate race\u2014is \u201cretro.\u201d But it is this nation\u2019s continued abuse of African Americans that compels her to do so…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.
\nAlso see, “Multi-Racial Detroiters: Here\u2019s how some local folks with parents of different races self-identify<\/a>“.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Living Colors B.L.A.C. Detroit: Black Life, Arts and Culture Magazine February 2011 Jared A. Ball, Associate Professor of Communication Studies Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland [Listen to the interview with Jared Ball and Lori Robinson on WDET in Detroit on 2011-02-01\u00a0here.] A Black man with a White mother examines the concept of multiracial identity\u2014past, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,125,8,394,20],"tags":[5961,5962,5960,5965,5963,5959,142,3048,5958,1471,5964,5754],"class_list":["post-13206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-socialscience","category-usa","tag-arts-culture","tag-b-l-a-c","tag-black-life","tag-detroit","tag-dream-hampton-rejects","tag-freman-hendrix","tag-g-reginald-daniel","tag-jared-a-ball","tag-jared-ball","tag-jared-sexton","tag-karima-ullah","tag-michigan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13206"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42758,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13206\/revisions\/42758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}