{"id":45430,"date":"2016-01-27T22:02:31","date_gmt":"2016-01-27T22:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=45430"},"modified":"2017-04-02T16:34:32","modified_gmt":"2017-04-02T16:34:32","slug":"can-i-call-my-nonbiological-twins-black-because-my-husband-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=45430","title":{"rendered":"Can I Call My Nonbiological Twins Black Because My Husband Is?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can I Call My Nonbiological Twins Black Because My Husband Is?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Ethicist<\/a>
\nThe New York Times Magazine<\/a>
\n2016-01-27<\/p>\n

Kwame Anthony Appiah<\/a><\/strong>, Professor of Philosophy, Law
\nNew York University<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIllustration by Tomi Um<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a Caucasian woman married to an African-American man. Shortly after we married, I discovered that I couldn\u2019t conceive my own biological children. We opted to \u2018\u2018adopt\u2019\u2019 two embryos. (Couples who have successfully undergone in-vitro fertilization<\/a> and don\u2019t wish to have more children can donate remaining embryos to other couples.) I was soon pregnant and gave birth to twins. Based on the records of the fertility clinic, we know that our children are genetically mixed Hispanic and Caucasian. I am not comfortable being open about the origin of my children, except with family and close friends, until they are old enough for me to explain it to them. However, several times in the last three years, I\u2019ve been asked about their race, most recently on a pre-K<\/a> school application form. On this form, there is no option of \u2018\u2018mixed race\u2019\u2019 or \u2018\u2018other.\u2019\u2019 Therefore, I identified my children as black. Was this the right choice?<\/em> Name Withheld, Chicago<\/a><\/p>\n

Ethics generally commends<\/strong> telling the truth. But in a situation in which our ordinary ways of thinking are at odds with reality, there can be no easy truth to be had. When it comes to race, confusion is the most intellectually defensible position. Let\u2019s try to sow some. If your children were your biological children, many people in our society would say that they were African-American, because we have a tradition, going back before emancipation<\/a>, of treating people with one black parent as black .\u2009.\u2009. or Negro or colored or whatever the favored term was at various times in American history. That\u2019s the \u2018\u2018one-drop rule<\/a>,\u2019\u2019 so called because consistent application of it would mean that anyone with any African ancestry at all was black. (Of course, unbeknown to those who started this system, we all have African ancestry in the long run, which shows how much our thinking is shaped by our lack of knowledge.)…<\/p>\n

As it happens, millions of Americans are black according to the one-drop rule but don\u2019t have any of the features that people associate with African ancestry. Lots of them \u2018\u2018pass\u2019\u2019 for white<\/a>. Many don\u2019t, though. Walter White<\/a>, the early-20th-century leader of the N.A.A.C.P.<\/a>, was able to travel the South investigating lynchings<\/a> because, although his parents were ex-slaves, he \u2018\u2018looked white.\u2019\u2019 His autobiography begins: \u2018\u2018I am a Negro. My skin is white, my eyes are blue, my hair is blond. The traits of my race are nowhere visible upon me.<\/a>\u2019\u2019 (In a bio\u00adpic, he could have been played by, oh, Bryan Cranston<\/a>.) \u2018\u2018\u2009\u2019Cause it\u2019s swell to have a leader\/That can pass for white,\u2019\u2019 wrote Langston Hughes<\/a>, who with his \u2018\u2018copper-brown skin and straight black hair\u2019\u2019 \u2014 his description \u2014 was himself taken for white during a trip to Africa and could have passed for Indian if he troubled himself to do so…<\/p>\n

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

Ethics generally commends telling the truth. But in a situation in which our ordinary ways of thinking are at odds with reality, there can be no easy truth to be had. When it comes to race, confusion is the most intellectually defensible position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,414,125,8,6941,394,20],"tags":[22838,1708,7464,2640,22839,2327,13109,6786,1929],"class_list":["post-45430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-family","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-philosophy","category-socialscience","category-usa","tag-kwame-anthony-akroma-ampim-kusi-appiah","tag-kwame-anthony-appiah","tag-kwame-appiah","tag-new-york-times","tag-the-ethicist","tag-the-new-york-times","tag-the-new-york-times-magazine","tag-walter-francis-white","tag-walter-white"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45430","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=45430"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53205,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45430\/revisions\/53205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}