Black White Man

Elise has a very good post about the drawbacks and benefits being raised in an interracial family.   It struck me that some people seriously consider the pros and cons of bringing children into multi-racial families — not because that’s a bad thing to consider, it’s a good thing to think about; but because it’s never been a choice for me, so I’ve never considered it a choice, really.    Of course, I didn’t choose being born into a multi-racial family myself, and I’ve always imagined myself in multi-racial families myself.   Whether I married a Black or a White woman, I’d consider that relationship to be somewhat multi-racial.

Reading over Elise’s post, one thing that struck me is that, to me, the ‘downside’ of not feeling like you fit in and that you’re not represented in popular media, which are very serious issues that I had growing up (and continue to have) is something very external.   There’s a system of racial categorization “out there” and I don’t happen to fit into it.    Conversely, the ‘strength’ of being taught about diversity and inclusiveness, which I find equally true in my case, I’ve always considered a personal strength.    So, in my mind at least, the ‘pro’ and the ‘con’ of being raised in a multi-racial family don’t exactly balance out.   They have a complicated synergy, as if being flip sides of the same coin.

I think that systems of classifying race are important, at least for the time and place that we live in now.    There are differences between people which are important for us to talk about (e.g. differences in culture, income, and health), and so we need language.    But any system has its flaws, and I think that problems I’ve had fitting in are useful in highlighting those flaws, without necessarily throwing out the whole system altogether.    So, I guess I see the ‘strength’ of diversity as being a cure for the ‘problem’ of not fitting in.    It’s not as simple as a ‘problem’ to be ‘solved’, but more of an ongoing process.    There will always be ways to categorize people which will be simultaneously useful and also sources of division — the same thing happens on class, nationality, gender, religion, profession, etc. etc.   And so I think there will also be a difficult but important role for people who don’t fit into those categories.    I don’t think parents should be shying away from the concept, any more than I think that we should be encouraging multi-racial-ness.   It simply is what it is, something to be proud of, but not any moreso than people who are deeply entrenched in one ancestry should be proud of that.