Multiracial And “Checking The Box”

The permutations of one’s background can be virtually endless, but by being forced to choose one box, multiracial persons are forced in a very real way to deny aspects of their own identities.

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Historically, people in this country have been asked to “check a box” to indicate their membership in one demographic group or another.  But, as with all efforts to categorize, not everything (or everyone) can be neatly fit into pre-selected boxes. In particular, being forced to check a box has presented something of an existential crisis for those who are multiracial.  If one is Black and White, what box should be checked? What if one is ¼ Asian, ¼ Latino, and ½ White?  The permutations of one’s background can be virtually endless, but by being forced to choose one box, multiracial persons are forced in a very real way to deny aspects of their own identities.

Various efforts have been made over the years to address this issue. But, these various efforts continue to gloss over a more fundamental issue.  In particular, the question is whether continued insistence that people categorize themselves (even if they are permitted to choose more than one box on an official form) somehow contributes to separation and segregation of the races as well as to making multiracial people feel more separate and apart than they already may feel.

I raise this point not merely as an academic exercise.  My wife and I are an interracial couple.  She is Black, and I am White.  Although, to be honest, neither of our backgrounds is quite so clear-cut.  For example, my wife’s grandparents on at least one side of her family were at least one-half Native American.  Meantime, my family, like so many Ashkenazi Jewish families, hails from Eastern Europe.  However, based on an outward appearance of at least some of the members of our family, there is some conjecture that some of our Russian ancestors may even have had some roots in Asia.  So, am I White?  Am I Jewish?  Am I possibly semi-Asiatic?  What am I?  And, what does all this make our young son?  Is he Biracial (Black-White)? Is he Black-White-Native American-Asian?

But, even if we did a DNA test to verify the origins of all of our ancestors and were able to pinpoint with scientific accuracy all of the races to which the members of our multiracial family belong, the question is: to what end?   Is identifying the racial groups to which people belong helping us to better understand and study and honor and respect the identity or is it just another way to help set up walls and barriers?

I don’t necessarily have an answer to that question.  On the one hand, census-taking and demography are important tools.  On the other hand, categorization of a populace has historically been used for purposes that are not always so benign.

As a member of one minority group (Jewish people) and a member of a small but growing population cohort (multiracial families), I will confess to being curious to know the numbers of “my people” that are in the population.  It’s always comforting to know that one is not alone.  But, at the same time, is it really all that important to know the actual numbers?  What if we eliminated all these boxes and box-checking?  What would happen if we stopped putting people in a box and left all of us to remain unboxed or “free-range” so to speak.  Would it possibly be one step in the path to making us all stop thinking about people as “this or that” and rather as just people?

Photo: Keoni101/Flickr