Facebook as a Guide for ‘Multi-racial Understanding’

By Guest Contributor The CVT, cross-posted from CHOP-TENSILS

With the lead-up to Obama’s inauguration, there was a ton of chatter about multi-racial people and what that meant for the future of the U.S., in regards to racial relations and understanding.  (*1)  Some years passed, the 2010 census went down, and now the conversation seems to have reappeared in the public arena.  (*2)

The ideas are nothing new, of course: there are drastically more people claiming a mixed-race identity than ever before, with the numbers expected to continue trending upwards; and somewhere around 2060, the U.S. is expected to be less than 50% white.  The resulting question is deceptively simple – does this mean that we are getting closer to a “post-racial” world, and that, subsequently, racial conflict and inequality is on the downslope?

My simple answer?  Um . . .

Hell no.  And that’s it.

But for those of you who would like a bit more complicated answer, I’ll see what I can do here.

Check the “Multiracial” Box

I’m going to start this all off with a quick tear through some points I’ve mentioned in the past that touch on why current statistics on “mixed-race” folks doesn’t necessarily mean anything in regards to racial understanding or equality.  For those looking for a quicker-read, y’all can just stick to that.

For those looking for a little bit deeper analysis (and why I referenced Facebook in this post), that will come in the last section.  Cool?

Alright, here we go . . .

Statistics.

First off, I know statistics and how people use (or mis-use) them to come to questionable conclusions, and let’s just say that the statistics we’re looking at here are questionable, at best.  (*3)

It’s basically just a matter of sampling – nobody’s going to deny that “multiracial” wasn’t an official option until the last decade or so in  any official data collection attempts.  So the question is – how can we compare current numbers of “multiracial” folks to past numbers, if there are no past numbers?

We can’t.  At least not accurately.  Instead, folks employ all sorts of other statistical methods (all with their own flaws) to extrapolate that data from what they can find from past records.

But past records didn’t allow for “multiracial” individuals.  For all practical purposes, we’ve been talking “one-drop” up until now, so any “mixed” people were “monoracial” back in the day.  Hell – even Obama isn’t acceptably “multiracial” in a lot of folks’ eyes today.  So any guess – no matter how “statistically rigorous” – on how many “multiracial” folks there used to be is just that: a guess.

So yeah – anecdotally-speaking, it seems like there are a lot more mixed folks, but we can’t really prove that.  It’s probably true, but I bet it’s a much smaller increase than everybody’s claiming.

“Mixed kids are a step towards greater overall racial diversity.”

So let’s say there really is a huge increase in mixed folks in the U.S.  Then what?

The bolded statement above?  A huge assumption that’s not necessarily true, either.

Let me give you an example: take a bi-racial (white/Asian) gal.  Say she marries a “mono-racial” white guy and has kids.  In all likelihood, what are those kids going to look like, and how are they going to identify themselves, racially (and be identified)?  Yeah – probably as “white.”

So, in that case, the mixed girl was actually an interim step towards less blood of color in her family’s genepool.  Add to this example the fact that most white-and-”other” mixed folks tend to marry and have kids with other “monoracial” white folks (especially in Asian communities), and it just stretches out the case that mixed kids often lead to less racial diversity on an overall level.

Is this the majority of the cases?  (*4) Maybe, maybe not.  But it’s certainly common enough to dispense with that particular myth, and call into question the drastic increases expected based on current numbers.

“Brazil.”

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