Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2000 19:58:05 -0800 (PST)
From: Ron
Subject: Letter to the Editor
I have no problems with interracial marriages or couples or they offspring that they produce. I just wonder why is their so much of emphasis on people naming like 10 different things that they are mixed with it. Arent all black people mixed with something ? It seems like interracial people want to distance themselves from black people and intermingle with people other races other than black. I know a family that is Biracial (black-white) all them are married to or have kids by white people and all their kids look white. I wonder how are these kids that are 3/4 white and 1/4 black are going to relate to black people if all they see are white faces and light-skin faces. the kids of the biracial family have all white friends. I have another friend that is Dutch-black-Native-American and he says that he’s not black and he wants his kids to look white so that they wont have to go through what he went through. It seems that children of interracial unions who don’t identify themselves as black always intermarry or have children with people that are not black. To dilute the black so that their kids can pass with a white world or hispanic world, anything but black folks. I trying to understand how mixed race people feel but I cant seemed to grasp it. I live in Michigan and if you can direct to some groups where I can meet other interracial people so they I can open my mind and not be so close minded. I feel that with all this mixing that black people would loose their ground and wont have a say so and society will favor and cater to mixed-race blacks as I call them and leave the “dark skin” ones behind. Society has always favored the light-skin mixed race black beauty (Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Vanessa Williams, Mariah Carey, Halle Berry, Michael Michelle and the list is endless. a lot of the black characters that are featured on soap operas or other shows are usually biracial people (Black-white.) Then when people see a dark-skin black person they say that is ugly give us a black women, that looks like Halle berry or a black man that looks like sheemar Moore, Both Halle and Sheemar Moore Identity themselves a African-American but do acknowledge their half-white side. This whole black vs mixed-race/biracacial/multiracial is getting bad. i sense alot of hatred on this letter board. Let’s come together people !!!! Can we all at least try to get along, we are all people of color !!!!!!
Editor: The big deal is that people have a right to define themselves and not be hostage to the collective. This group identity business that is pushed by those opposed to multiracial identity is a form of suppression and slavery. A person’s right to self-identify is not dependent on the permission of others. You identify how you see fit. I’ll identify how I see fit and we’ll all get along. Anything else is unacceptable.