All Mixed Up? Myths and Realities About Multiracial Professionals

by Carmen Van Kerckhove

This is a little teaser video I put together to help publicize a workshop I’m presenting at The Partnership’s 2007 Annual Winter Conference in Boston on Thursday, December 6th. To find out more and/or register for this event, click here.

All Mixed Up? Myths and Realities About Multiracial Professionals

“She doesn’t know if she’s Asian or white!” “He has major identity issues.” Chances are you’ve heard others talk about mixed race people using simplistic stereotypes like this. The reality is that being multiracial is a complex, multi-layered experience. In this session, Carmen Van Kerckhove identifies some of the common assumptions made about mixed race people, points out why these are untrue, and discusses some of the implications that the growing multiracial population has on the workplace.

WHAT ATTENDEES WILL LEARN:

• Why identifying as multiracial is not a racial “cop-out”
• What the one-drop rule is and how it continues to influence our view of race today
• Why the rise of multiracial people and interracial couples cannot be taken as evidence that racism is declining

WHAT TOOLS ATTENDEES WILL TAKE AWAY:

• Find out what ”racial scripts” are and how they influence your interactions with others
• Discover why some multiracial professionals don’t like it when people ask them, “What are you?”
• Learn why there is so much inconsistency in the way multiracial people are classified on official forms.