My Mixed Friend takes on the New York Times

Yesterday, a good friend of mine made his New York Times debut talking about multiracial identity and Barack Obama in the article Who Are We? New Dialogue on Mixed Race.

I can't tell you how excited I was to see this on the front page. Yes, Barack Obama is great... but it's even better to hear people my age getting a chance to talk about being mixed on a national stage.... gosh.. the NY TIMES IS A BIG DEAL

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the article... enjoy!

p.s. James McBride is one of my favorite authors... his book the Color of Water helped me gain a better sense of who I am

From James McBride:

“I really wanted to be like all the other black kids. It was the larger group around me.” And through life, because of his brown skin, society has imposed its own label. “If cops see me, they see a black man sitting in a car,” he said.

But being proud to call himself African-American, Mr. McBride said, does not negate his connection to his “Jewish part,” his mother’s heritage. Asked which part of him was dominant, he said, “It’s like grabbing Jell-O.”

“But what difference does it make?” he added. “When you’re mixed, you see how absurd this business of race is.”

(Photo Phillip Handy from NY Times.com)

From Phillip Handy on Barack Obama:

“He’s really having to play the field and know his audience really well,” said Phillip Handy, 21, a junior at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., whose mother is white and father is black. “In the end, when I hear his message, I don’t think he’s bailing out on any of us.”


Last thing... I promise it's worth it... The article features Carmen Van Kerckhove who runs racialicious.com. Her blog is pretty darn fabulous!