{"id":5154,"date":"2004-01-08T18:41:00","date_gmt":"2004-01-08T18:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/multiracial.com\/?p=5154"},"modified":"2021-06-14T03:55:48","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T03:55:48","slug":"racial-identity-in-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/2004\/01\/08\/racial-identity-in-balance\/","title":{"rendered":"Racial Identity in Balance"},"content":{"rendered":"

This author doesn’t realize that the “diversity” industry she admires cannot accept her family’s multiracial identity because it is based on the myth that everyone in the U.S. can easily fit into the official “racial” categories. Everyone would be better off without it. She also blames “whites” alone for being slow to recognize multiracial ancestry. The “white” attitude she condemns is preferable to the black-identified mulatto elites who scrutinize every facial feature, strand of hair, and skin coloration for signs of the dreaded “black blood.”<\/p>\n

Racial Identity in Balance<\/a>
\nThe Chronicle of Higher Education
\nBy NAOMI J. MILLER<\/p>\n

I consider myself multiracial. Technically, I am half Japanese, a quarter Czech, and a quarter English-Dutch. By definition, then, I am an “other” in American society. Or at least I am according to conventional definitions of race and ethnicity, which require people to check the box marked “other” when they don’t fit into one of the pre-established categories. <\/p>\n

And yet, every day those of us who are multiracial live “outside the box,” as tired as that phrase may be. We are not “other” to ourselves. And we need not allow ourselves to be defined in contrast to, or in opposition to, an assumed standard of racial singularity. But we do need to educate those around us about the reality of feeling boxed in by definitions of racial identity that confront not only multiracial individuals, but every individual who checks a box whose category is not an adequate definition of his or her identity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This author doesn’t realize that the “diversity” industry she admires cannot accept her family’s multiracial identity because it is based on the myth that everyone in the U.S. can easily fit into the official...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[63,141],"tags":[127],"class_list":["post-5154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-d-powells-view","category-news-clips","tag-affirmative-action-and-diversity"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p89tuq-1l8","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/AD-Powell.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7370,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5154\/revisions\/7370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}