Why Multiracial is an
Important Word
Now that the minorities are becoming the majorities in the United States, the academicians and Washington bureaucrats can
finally believe what we’ve been telling them all these years: multiracial
people are becoming people we know. Some of them are in our families. Even our
President is multiracial; how about that!
But some of those same people also want to take us back, way
back to a time when people were not in a position to put a respectable name to
what they were.
Back in the 1990s, advocates for multiracial people went to Washington. We were told
we would never get a category if we didn’t know what to call it. You see, all
kinds of terms were being tossed around: multiracial, biracial, interracial,
mixed, half-breed, mixed-race, mulatto, and others; literally, “other.” No, we
did not go to Washington
just to be classified as “other.”
Project RACE was a growing organization by that time and we
polled the membership. What terminology did they
want? The answer was overwhelmingly “Multiracial.”
Biracial was a close runner-up, but did not seem as all-encompassing as
multiracial. Our members spoke and we listened. We went to Washington and told them what our majority wanted. When they said it
was too ambiguous, we suggested a good compromise, an “Umbrella” category of
Multiracial with the top five or ten most utilized combinations, very similar
to how the Asian or Hispanic groups look. No, they didn’t want “multiracial” at
all. It would become “the M word.”
If we go even further back in time, we can see how one
community went from colored to Negro to black to African American. In fact,
there was so much of a negative community uproar when the US Census Bureau put
“Negro” on the 2010 census forms that we may not see it again.
In the mid-1990s, some of the Hapas—Asian and some other
race—tried to talk some of the multiracial groups into using “Hapa” for
everyone of more than one race, which obviously did not work. Some of the other
groups, weary of it all by then, succumbed to the Census Bureau and NAACP’s “better
judgment” of just check two or more boxes.
I admit to some despair at that time. I think we have seen
proper terminology work for other groups, including the one advising us to just
choose two or more. What harm is there in calling a group what it wants? Well, more
than one group that had adopted “multiethnic,” even though race and ethnicity
are two different things, another that wanted “interracial” and no one could
agree. As far as I know, Project RACE was the only group that polled its
membership for their opinion. Even better, we never gave in to other groups,
demographers, politicians, or people who work for the government.
The term “multiracial” is a completely respectable term that
defines someone of more than one race. It should be embraced by the multiracial
community, but that isn’t happening—again.
One of the things we set out to do was to make the term
“Multiracial” accepted. So what if that wasn’t what the federal government wanted?
When we talk to the media, we use the correct terminology and it seems that
they have listened. We advocate for the terminology of “Multiracial” being used
on school forms, one reason was that teachers asked for it so that they could
be consistent in their classrooms with their multiracial students.
One thing I have noticed is whenever the media refers to the
background of our President, they use the respectful term “Multiracial.” No one
calls him a “mixie.”
However, “mixies” abound. Personally, I would be happy never
to hear that term again. It’s a terrible self-fulfilling prophecy, it’s not
nearly as cute as the females who say it think it is—I’ve never heard a male
call himself a mixie—and it’s not respectful, it’s derogatory. What is wrong
with these mostly female 20 somethings who refer to themselves as “mixies”? It
would have been just as bad had the black community referred to itself as
“colored peeps.” It’s just not right. I have been told that some of the “mixies”
are just trying to get attention and publicity and feel anything goes. But it
doesn’t. Not in the long run. A derogatory term is still derogatory no matter
how you say it. If we laugh at ourselves, others will be happy to laugh at us,
too.
Don’t even get me started on multiracial people who tend to
smile in a slightly uneasy way and say, “I’m just a mutt.”
What we call people is
important. What we call ourselves or our children or grandchildren is important!
Why is this community trying to sabotage itself?!
Whether it’s called “mixie” on a radio show or “Critical Mixed
Studies” by academics, it’s still wrong. I admit that I always felt the term
“mixed” leant itself to things like “Mixed Nuts’ and “Mixed up.” I don’t even
want to count the media stories over the years that said mixed kids were mixed
up. One day I sat down and contemplated what really turned me off to the term
“mixed.” I realized that the opposite of “mixed” is “pure.” I don’t want to be
part of a culture that separates people by mixed and pure. It reminds me too
much of Hitler and the “superior” white race, and I certainly don’t want to go
there.
Yes, we advocate for the correct terminology of
“Multiracial.” I recently heard a US
Census top level executive refer to multiracial people as “People of more than
one category.” Another new one is “people in combination,” which brings to mind
ordering a combo meal at a fast food restaurant. One journalist thinks “people
of color” is the answer to everything when all it does is separate whites from
everyone else and so people would rekindle the days when the terminology was
“colored people.” Is that really what you want? Can’t we show a cohesive
acceptance of a word that describes us?
I am compelled by the membership of Project RACE to defend
what our national membership wants—the term “Multiracial.” It means someone who
is of more than one race. It’s a respectful, accurate, preferred term, it’s
better than any other terminology to date, and it’s critical to let those in
Washington, and in our own backyards, our schools, our hospitals, etc. know
that we are cohesive, aware, politically astute, and advocates for multiracial wording
on forms and in common usage.
