Date: Mon, March 17, 2003 4:46 pm
From: Pierre
Subject: letter to editor
Hi, it me Pierre, its quite strange to identify oneself as mixed race, however, my heritage is black/white. I was just surfing the net to find some material for an essay on terminology, that is the change from mixed race to mixed parentage, and I found your wed sight from, a link form, People in Harmony. if one takes an academic point of view the notion of race does not exist. For example, the research on the human Genoa has identified that we are all basically the same- genetically that is. I for one, really did not need anyone to tell me that, but its nice to have it officially.
The point is, if we are all genetically the same, then what value is there in the term mixed race, biracial, and mixed parentage, etc. I am writing this from London, which has the largest mixed race population percentage wise in the world (although most are under five) if you know what I mean. Like yourselves a new category was added to the census forms 2002. An indication that mixed race beings, might have an identity, or more to the point, position other than the one imposed by the one drop of black blood rule. Don’t get me wrong, politically I am black, but spiritually I am definitely mixed! And to some extent I feel a little duped, something has been taken away because of my heritage. Not to flageolet myself, but I do feel that I need to take stock, and reconfigure what it means to be mixed.
Thus terminology will play a very important part in this process of becoming. I feel, to be affiliated with the notion of mixed race, really means that I have chosen not to be affiliated with a purity that really is false. There seams little point in perpetuation the notion of purity through the social construction of race. Mixed race or mixed parentage allows me to be without race in some sense. This means that I can be connected to all who have the same ideas, anywere in the knowen world. lets get connexted.
Pierre