{"id":44078,"date":"2015-11-20T21:32:10","date_gmt":"2015-11-20T21:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=44078"},"modified":"2016-06-14T17:09:52","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T17:09:52","slug":"when-youre-biracial-theres-no-choice-in-the-matter-of-your-blackness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=44078","title":{"rendered":"When You\u2019re Biracial, There\u2019s No \u2018Choice\u2019 in the Matter of Your Blackness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theroot.com\/articles\/culture\/2015\/11\/if_you_re_biracial_there_s_no_choice_in_the_matter_of_your_blackness.html\" target=\"_blank\">When You\u2019re Biracial, There\u2019s No \u2018Choice\u2019 in the Matter of Your Blackness<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theroot.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Root<\/a><br \/>\n2015-11-19<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ellisonreport\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Charles D. Ellison<\/strong><\/a>, Contributing Editor<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s safe to wager that when well-meaning black actor <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Taye_Diggs\" target=\"_blank\">Taye Diggs<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/msnbc\/taye-diggs-prefers-call-biracial-son-mixed-doesnt-consider-obama-black\" target=\"_blank\">took a recent dip into controversy<\/a> over his biracial son\u2019s identity, there was no less than white former <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Idina_Menzel\" target=\"_blank\">Mrs. Taye Diggs<\/a> putting on the pressure in the background: \u201cHey, I\u2019m here. White mom. Don\u2019t forget about me.\u201d And who knows? Taut playpen discussions might have taken an interesting turn. Somewhat understandably, but too publicly and too clumsily, Diggs obliged, and met the ire of many African Americans head on. While Diggs gets some nod for courage, he did rip back a rather mean layer of onion in the process.<\/p>\n<p>But the mistake Diggs made here is not so much the demand that his son stand firm on his biracialness. It\u2019s that he trivializes that kind of existence as a simple mark-the-box <em>choice<\/em>. Contrary to the warped and misguided conjecture that biracial sons and daughters somehow have more control over their racial selfness than black people do, it\u2019s really a lot more complex than that.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t get me wrong: Diggs loves his son. And he should demand respect and love for the mother from the start. No surprise, even, if it was also Diggs\u2019 conclusion that his boy\u2019s complete embrace of the biracial construct could somehow shield him from the beastly assaults of routine racism.<\/p>\n<p>It won\u2019t&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theroot.com\/articles\/culture\/2015\/11\/if_you_re_biracial_there_s_no_choice_in_the_matter_of_your_blackness.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When You\u2019re Biracial, There\u2019s No \u2018Choice\u2019 in the Matter of Your Blackness The Root 2015-11-19 Charles D. Ellison, Contributing Editor It\u2019s safe to wager that when well-meaning black actor Taye Diggs took a recent dip into controversy over his biracial son\u2019s identity, there was no less than white former Mrs. Taye Diggs putting on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,414,125,8,20],"tags":[21953,21954,21895,3234],"class_list":["post-44078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-family","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-charles-d-ellison","tag-charles-ellison","tag-taye-diggs","tag-the-root"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44078","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=44078"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44140,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44078\/revisions\/44140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}