Essay On Multiracialism

Mixed race couples have been steadily increasing and as multiracialism becomes more relevant to today’s society, an array of intriguing arguments can be found related to the subject. Take multiracialism and mix it in today’s popular culture and the result is a trendy outlook on race. There are many examples of people who try to advocate multiracialism such as actor Taye Diggs. On the other hand, there are also many examples of people who believe the multiracial “conversation” should not be such a big deal such as Professor Hortense Spillers of Vanderbilt University. Ultimately, I believe that race is no longer necessarily a person’s ethnic group or cultural history but what society perceives them to be. While the subject of multiracialism has recently become more prevalent, due to the countless pre-dispositions and stereotypes related to race, these increased conversations of multiracialism do not progress and bring rightful awareness to mixed-race people. Spillers highlights the fact that many mixed race people are somewhat “repressed” from disclosing their multiracial status. Spillers explains that when filling out the census, most people do not

The idea that mixed race people must identify with their less “favorable” race is terrible. How is there a more or less “favorable” race? Partially quoting actor Taye Diggs, he says “It would be great if it didn’t matter…” on the subject of Obama’s black versus mixed identification. Someone who is half African American and half Caucasian should be able to identify with both. However, in today’s society if a multiracial person has darker skin, they may only be seen as African American. This can be hurtful to multiracial people since half of their cultural background and ethnicity is being