Like Obama. He's biracial but is always labeled "black". Seems a bit disrespectful to their other half to play the one card over the other!


Thoughts???

Obama is labeled "black" because he looks it AND because he labels himself that way. He hasn't lied about who and what he is. Everyone knows he's mixed.

Biracial people tend to identify themselves more with what they feel most comfortable with. When the subject comes up, however, most openly admit their biracial lineage. I haven't know too many who flat-out refuse to acknowledge one side of who they are.

Agree with Chris. It really depends on where you live, how you grew up, what side of the family you're closest to and how I dunno "traditional" each of your interracial parents are in their ethnic culture. My dad is German and my mom is Mexican, but you'd never know it by looking at me. Everyone just see's a run of the mill white guy. Don't deny my mom's roots, but in a group of Germans and in a group of Mexicans, I blend in much more with the former than latter.

So long as they keep it real, never denying or omitting one side of their lineage, then they can personally gravitate toward or identify with whichever they feel more comfortable with. But the fact remains that there is a such thing as predominant genes. Despite the 50/50 DNA they get from each parent, some biracial people still look more like one than the other (which translates into how society views/treats them)....it then makes sense that they would be quicker to align or "label" themselves as one. If the average person didn't know that Obama, Lenny Kravitz or Halle Berry had a white parent, they would see them as black. So what the hell, they may as well go ahead and accept that this is the image staring back at them in the mirror, instead of playing like Tiger with some nonsensical "Calabasian" shit...which sounds like something a little kid would say.

^^^^^^ Pretty much.

I'm biracial. My dad is British and my mom is African-American. My mother is light skinned, so my siblings and I are all very fair skinned, but I just say I'm black whenever anyone asks and I used get asked all the time when I was a kid. I love both sides equally, but I just assimilated more with my black side.

I agree about Tiger Woods, but I think his father had something to do with his weird way of thinking.

Personally I don't know any biracial people who label themselves as JUST ONE THING, even though many may identify more toward one side. I'm half Arab and half Italian, I lean more toward my Italian side because that's the side (my mom's side) that I bonded with more growing up, but I never deny being part Arab. When I'm asked, I always say what I fully am. It's society that does the labeling of biracial people and does it based on looks alone. Right or wrong.

stonestatic wrote:

Like Obama. He's biracial but is always labeled "black". Seems a bit disrespectful to their other half to play the one card over the other!


Thoughts???

Thoughts? It wasn't all that lomg ago that he wouldn't have been able to eat at certain lunch counters or drink from certain water fountains. You want to talk about disrespectful?.

I've never really considered myself "just one thing" and if I'm asked on those forms, I just ignore that question for the most part, or choose not to answer. I'll tell people I'm part Japanese, part Ukrainian and fully Canadian if they ask, and that's the way I see myself. I'm a mix of both heritages, and was raised with both cultures, but I'm also fully Canadian, too. I don't think I necessarily identify with one culture more than another but that might have to do with the fact that both sides have been in Canada for around 100 years. I'm fourth generation Canadian on all sides. I want to adopt from Uganda, and maybe one of the South American countries some day, so I'd have a pretty multi cultural family, anyway, and qwould want to incorporate my children's heritage into our lives as much as possible, because it's a part of who we would be as a family.