My Thought as I Journey Through this Class (Part 5) Race is Not Defined by Color

I didn't know many of the words in one of the articles.  I could figure it out my taking the root, but I had never heard them before.  Mono-racial, trans-racial, and bi-racial are all three words I had to double check the meaning of.  I was also intrigued when reading how African American children with white parents (trans-racial) didn't have the same kind of buffers that they would have with both black parents.  I never thought about the fact that white people don't know anything about the racism that goes on in many minorities circle of life.   (Butler-Sweet, 2011)

I never thought about the social institution that is the family as something that protects or buffers against the effect of racism.  I've always heard people say that old familiar phrase, “they are at it again”  “they are trying to get more rights”.  If I heard the word “they” in my household, it was always referring to African Americans.  It never dawned on me that was what these civic and religious organizations were partly for, to give a people, culture, an ethnicity a voice.   (Butler-Sweet, 2011)

It is also interesting to think how so many people on earth do stereotype.   We have all labeled someone at one time or another in our lifetime.  We see people with too many tattoos or piercings, so we put them over in the “them” column.  Women who cut their hair short, we put them in the “gay” category.  The list goes on.  The most surprising part is how children with parents that are not of the same ethnicity will not be considered white even if their skin is white, nor will other ethnic groups accept them either.  This is in many cases, not all.  This is sad that we behave in this way as a nation and even on a bigger stage, world citizen.   (Butler-Sweet, 2011)

Other terms I was not familiar with were singular identity, border identity, protean identity, and transcendent identity.  I didn't even know that people identify themselves in this way.  I have always agreed that ethnic groups should shy away from cross racial boundaries when raising children; however, I've come off as sounding racist when giving this opinion.  My opinion was based on what biracial kids have shared with me.  They mostly say it is problematic.  The issue is who to identify with.  Do they consider themselves white or black, and does it even matter how they see themselves because it is others that are going to treat them according to what label they receive?
 (Butler-Sweet, 2011)

My favorite quote from both these journals I read came from the Monica Brown article.  “Although I've described myself as "half-Peruvian" or "half-Jewish" as a shortcut in the past”, “I am not half of anything.” “I am made of multitudes, not fractions.”  This is an awesome statement that promotes self-identity and self-awareness.  (Brown, 2014)

            Brown, M. (2014). Not Part, Not Half, But Whole. School Library Journal, 60(5), 32.

            Butler-Sweet, C. (2011). ‘Race isn't what defines me’: exploring identity choices in transracial, biracial, and monoracial families. Social Identities, 17(6), 747-769. doi:10.1080/13504630.2011.606672