Choosing one's race -- or not -- as the country browns

by Pam Spaulding

"Children of white-Asian and white-Hispanic parents will have no problems calling themselves white, if that's their choice. But offspring of black and another ethnic parent won't have that option. They'll be black because that's the way they're seen. Barack Obama, Tiger Woods, Halle Berry, have all known that. Will that change? Don't hold your breath."

-- Andrew Hacker, a political scientist at Queens College of the City University of New York and the author of a book about race.

The above quote is taken from a NYT article by Sam Roberts, "Black Women See Fewer Black Men at the Altar." While the initial focus of the article are the sobering but unsurprising statistics bearing out the all-too-common anecdotal stories you hear among many black women about the lack of marriageable black men. As in men not in prison or with a prison record, lack of a college degree, etc., and the third rail reason - that "the good ones" are seeking partners outside of their own race.

With our society becoming increasingly diverse because of interracial marriages, as well as the more mind-boggling pairings of multiracial people that make it almost impossible for their children to easily fit into carefully crafted census categories, the blending of America is still stuck tragically when it comes to the hotbed of a black-white divide.

Among all married African-Americans in 2008, 13 percent of men and 6 percent of women had a nonblack spouse. This compares with nearly half of American-born Asians choosing non-Asian spouses.

"The continuing imbalance in the rates for black men and black women could be making it even harder for black women to find a husband," said Prof. Andrew J. Cherlin, director of the population center at Johns Hopkins University.

The study, to be released Friday by the Pew Research Center, found that intermarriage among Asian, black, Hispanic and white people now accounts for a record 1 in 6 new marriages in the United States. Tellingly, blacks and whites remain the least-common variety of interracial pairing.

If you're black, get back . It's almost as if the "taint" of being black, regardless of socioeconomic status, is still a social impediment by default. When it comes to black women, there are still stigmas about beauty, about social status to contend with. The old saw about being taught not to discriminate by parents, but if you bring home a black date, it's the end of the world -- that still exists.

While I'm not sure if there's been a similar study about how LGBTs racial pairings compare when it comes to interracial partnerships, since our community is a reflection of American society at large, there's reason to believe that bias of the same sort exists. Certainly a scan of personal ads people make it clear of their racial preferences regardless of other factors of compatibility.

And that's where the quote at the beginning of the post comes in. We have all of this kumbaya mixing of other racial groups -- with their offspring having the ability to choose how they identify culturally and officially when they fill out a form. Through no fault of their own, if a multiracial child has nappy hair and a broader nose, most people will make an assumption they are black, even if they are fair skinned; it's more than just skin tone and a paper bag test.

It's why President Obama chose not to "claim" his whiteness on the U.S. census, though he could have on the 2010 form. If you see his photo, there's no way anyone is going to say he's white, though he's no more white than he is black. One can intellectualize that he can or should have checked "white" on the form to make a point, but it's as nonsensical as the construct we have created for "race" in the first place. It may be ridiculous, but culturally, we as a country cannot seem to let go of our biases when it comes to dating, mating or procreating.