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Thx HighJive. “The share of Americans who identify themselves as multiracial has shrunk this decade, an unexpected trend in an increasingly diverse nation.”
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Thx Eileen. “Most of them, like my own sons, had lived their entire little lives in a community as vanilla as the ice cream we enjoyed after each game. Until that day, they…never had they seen so many players with different-colored skin in the same plac
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Thx AAM. “Fifteen years ago, Wayne Lo went on a killing spree at his Massachusetts campus. Here’s his take on Virginia Tech.”
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Thx Kyla. “In 1957, the fight was over whether nine black students could attend an entirely white high school. Now it is over whether the city’s black leaders can exert firm control over the direction and perquisites of an urban school district in the w
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“To know that the American authorities permitted their soldiers to benefit from the enslavement of women most certainly distorts any image of the men as “peacemakers””
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“Electroman (aka James) and I were so blown away by Mr. Buchannan’s illogical bloviating (I learned a new word today!), that we decided to respond.”
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“Diego “Chico” Corrales, who won titles in two weight classes and won one of the most exciting boxing matches in recent years, died in a high-speed motorcycle crash. He was 29.”
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“We shouldn’t be the least bit surprised. This is a the rightward turn I have been predicting for France. Nicolas Sarkozy is also a conservative, who wants to rebuild the relationship between France and the US. Sarkozy beat France’s first woman can
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“I swear, if Sanjaya Malakar becomes a contestant on the second season of I Love New York as TMZ predicts, I’m canceling my cable and throwing the TV out the window.”
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Thx Wendi. “Recent events and media coverage seem to have swung the image of Asian American males away from the “meek, passive and mild” end of the spectrum and toward “violent, bloodthirsty and dangerous.”
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Aaron wrote:
re the USA today story, I have to say that I am a bit disappointed to see those numbers. It’s not because I want more people to identify as multi-racial or multi-ethnic just to give more political power to us as a group though. It is because I suspect fewer people are identifying as multi-racial because of implicit and explicit pressure. Having been subject to those pressures myself, and even told outright at a young age by people with authority over me that I was wrong to mark “other” when prompted to “choose only one” and forced to change my response, I think that everyone who is multiracial should be given the chance to identify as they see fit. Whether that means identifying as multiracial, x and y, half-x half-y, or only identifying as one race, if that is what they feel is the right identification. But I am worried that these results show that mixed people are just giving into social pressure. If I’m wrong on that point, then I don’t see any problem with it. But from my perspective people aren’t mixed still just don’t get understand or accept the idea that we exist, and that there are so many more of us that you’d expect if you just look around.
Posted 09 May 2007 at 12:01 pm ¶
kim wrote:
I just registered my youngest in Kindergarten and seriously hesitated at the ‘box to check’.
I call him Black, as I am Black. My other children call themselves Black (though with a self-consciousness that comes from being raised by a vocal Black woman harried by social forces in an all-White environment).
For my youngest, who calls himself White (we’ve had the talk, and I listen as well as guide), I know what I feel he must learn to identify as, if for no reason other than knowing how to identify and be respectful of: Black/Blacks.
I checked ‘other,’ and wrote in ‘multi-racial’.
There are pressures to choose, but maybe more parents and adults will come to examine the pros and cons of establishing this ‘new’ box, and respecting the choice of those who choose to check it.
Politically, there are enormous ramifications for the different groups as populations soar or decline. Politically, it may only be important as we’re all still fighting the lack of true meritocracy and level starting points in a democratic society with its one religion: capitalism.
I don’t have any solid answers as long as I continue to question.
Posted 09 May 2007 at 12:56 pm ¶
Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:
I thought this article was interesting too. I’ve definitely noticed a drop-off in the level of interest and activism amongst mixed folks in the past few years. It’ll be fascinating to see how it all plays out in 2010.
Posted 09 May 2007 at 1:55 pm ¶
coco wrote:
On Lessons of the Game (the NYT article)
I think it’s interesting that the author states that growing up in a multiethnic neighborhood made him colorblind, and then says he moved to an almost all white suburb and didn’t notice.
The concept of being colorblind has two faces here. On one hand, being colorblind meant that seeing people of different races taught him to be comfortable in a multiracial environment.
On the other hand being colorblind also meant that he was blind to the absence of racial diversity as an adult.
Responding to racial diversity by pretending it doesn’t exist, doesn’t solve the problem of racism. Ignoring race doesn’t make racism go away, it means we won’t notice it when it happens.
If the goal is to move away from segregation and towards integration, we definitely need a higher standard than “blind.”
Posted 10 May 2007 at 2:15 pm ¶