{"id":44102,"date":"2015-11-22T19:06:10","date_gmt":"2015-11-22T19:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=44102"},"modified":"2015-11-22T19:06:10","modified_gmt":"2015-11-22T19:06:10","slug":"taye-diggs-brave-defense-of-his-half-white-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=44102","title":{"rendered":"Taye Diggs\u2019 brave defense of his half-white son"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taye Diggs\u2019 brave defense of his half-white son<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The New York Post<\/a>
\n2015-11-19<\/p>\n

David Kaufman<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Actor and singer Taye Diggs<\/a> might be black, but he wants folks to understand that his son, Walker, isn\u2019t \u2014 at least not entirely. That\u2019s the message he\u2019s been shopping around as part of a tour to promote his new children\u2019s book, \u201cMixed Me<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tome is both inspired by and intended for kids like 6-year-old Walker, whose mother \u2014 Diggs\u2019 former wife, Idina Menzel<\/a> \u2014 is Caucasian. As Diggs sees it, Walker isn\u2019t black, he\u2019s biracial. And both whites and blacks seem equally invested in denying it.<\/p>\n

A similar situation befell President Obama \u2014 whose mother was white and who decided early in his career to opt in to blackness at the expense of his white half.<\/p>\n

Diggs\u2019 decision to embrace his son\u2019s biracial identity is brave \u2014 particularly for an African-American. For while America\u2019s \u201cone-drop\u201d rule<\/a> may have been established by white segregationists, it\u2019s often been embraced by blacks themselves.<\/p>\n

Stung by racism and seeking political potency (and safety) in numbers, blacks want to keep as many folks in their fold as possible \u2014 all black, half-black or whatever. How else to explain why black leaders were some of the most vocal opponents of the introduction of a \u201cmulti-racial\u201d category in the 2000 US Census?<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the common black contention that all African-Americans are of \u201cmixed\u201d ancestry as a result of miscegenation<\/a> during slavery. That might be true, but Diggs is speaking of his son being \u201cbiracial\u201d \u2014 not \u201cmulti-racial\u201d; his book focuses on kids whose parents are of two entirely different races, not mixes of many.<\/p>\n

For whites, meanwhile, \u201cone drop\u201d helps them do what they\u2019ve always done best \u2014 protect their privilege by any means necessary. To them, it\u2019s not so much about who is Caucasian, but rather making it clear who isn\u2019t. This is where \u201cone-drop\u201d comes in \u2014 to shut their biracial brethren out of the cultural, historical and economic benefits of whiteness…<\/p>\n

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

Taye Diggs\u2019 brave defense of his half-white son The New York Post 2015-11-19 David Kaufman Actor and singer Taye Diggs might be black, but he wants folks to understand that his son, Walker, isn\u2019t \u2014 at least not entirely. That\u2019s the message he\u2019s been shopping around as part of a tour to promote his new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,414,8,20],"tags":[13448,21967,21966,21895,21965],"class_list":["post-44102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-family","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-david-kaufman","tag-idina-menzel","tag-new-york-post","tag-taye-diggs","tag-the-new-york-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44102","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=44102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44103,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44102\/revisions\/44103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}