{"id":16160,"date":"2011-09-09T01:07:35","date_gmt":"2011-09-09T01:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=16160"},"modified":"2011-09-09T01:07:44","modified_gmt":"2011-09-09T01:07:44","slug":"16160","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=16160","title":{"rendered":"More metro Atlantans say they\u2019re multiracial: Fast-growing segment represents a cultural shift that\u2019s nationwide"},"content":{"rendered":"

More metro Atlantans say they\u2019re multiracial: Fast-growing segment represents a cultural shift that\u2019s nationwide<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Atlanta Journal-Constitution<\/a>
\n2011-09-03<\/p>\n

Bo Emerson<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

When Evelyn Brown-Wilder was growing up in Tuscaloosa, Ala.<\/a>, in the 1950s, life was a matter of warring opposites. Though some of her ancestors were white and her face was pale, the law said she was black. She wrapped both arms around that identity.<\/p>\n

Her daughter, Sonya Colvin-Boyd, lives in a different world and chooses a different identity. When it came time for Colvin-Boyd to indicate her race on her 2000 U.S. census form, she picked both white and black. \u201cWe\u2019re all mixed,\u201d said the Powder Springs<\/a> resident.
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\nClaiming both races puts her in one of the fastest-growing segments of America\u2019s population. It\u2019s a trend that reveals seismic shifts in both outward social and cultural relations and inward notions of individual identity.
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\nAcross metro Atlanta\u2019s<\/a> counties, the last decade saw a doubling or tripling of the number of people identifying themselves as being of more than one race, according to the Census Bureau. In Gwinnett County<\/a>, the number of respondents checking two or more races rose from 12,673 in 2000 to 25,292 in 2010, a 99 percent jump. In Fulton County<\/a>, the number rose from 11,853 to 20,279, a 71 percent increase. In Henry County<\/a>, the numbers went up 269 percent…<\/p>\n

…Yet mixed ancestry is a matter of fact for most Americans whose ancestors include people from Africa; they operate in a world of gradations where skin color sometimes determines status. \u201cA lot of darker-complected blacks saw it as the \u2018house Negro\u2019 syndrome versus the \u2018field Negro\u2019 syndrome,\u201d said Troy Gordon, 42, who teaches elementary school in Lithonia<\/a>. Gordon is a copper-skinned mix of African-American and American Indian, and his light skin drew \u201cflak\u201d when he was younger.
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\nHe knew, growing up, that \u201cblack\u201d was a whole range of colors, from his white great-grandmother, to his \u201cpaper-sack brown\u201d aunt and his green-eyed, red-haired uncle. \u201cI was black,\u201d said Gordon, \u201cbut you\u2019d see family pictures and say, \u2018Wow, who\u2019s this white lady?\u2019\u201d
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\nSuch conversations were limited back then. Today, there are many more talks about their multiracial heritage with his light-skinned 4-year-old son Chase. Chase\u2019s mother is white, and he considers himself white, though he pronounces it \u201cwipe.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More metro Atlantans say they\u2019re multiracial: Fast-growing segment represents a cultural shift that\u2019s nationwide Atlanta Journal-Constitution 2011-09-03 Bo Emerson When Evelyn Brown-Wilder was growing up in Tuscaloosa, Ala., in the 1950s, life was a matter of warring opposites. Though some of her ancestors were white and her face was pale, the law said she was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,33,8,20],"tags":[7488,7487,7486,3192],"class_list":["post-16160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-census","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-journal-constitution","tag-bo-emerson","tag-georgia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16160","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=16160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}