Carmen Ballard

Dr. Angela Mitchell

UWRIT 1104

31 October 2017

Research Essay Draft: Multiracial Identity

When I was about 10 years old, my younger sister, Sara, was just learning about the

history of slavery. We were sitting around the dinner table talking about how some white-passing

slaves would escape to northern states and pretend to be white to avoid being re-enslaved. My

mother instructed us to be grateful for the safe, comfortable lives that we had. My sister replied

with a question:

Mommy, if we lived in slavery times, would Carmen be a slave?

Sara, you would both would. Youre sisters, youre the same race.

Her statement shocked both of us. My sister and I look very different: she is tall and thin

with pale skin and blue eyes, and I have darker features. Most people would not assume we were

the same race, much less that we were sisters. Our mother is white, but our father was adopted.

He never addressed his race because his adoptive parents are black, and that is how he identifies.

So we never addressed the fact that we were of mixed race, never even new our dad was adopted,

until that night. This began my interest in discovering what it means to be multiracial.

Race is complicated because it creates dangerous stigma and stereotypes while also being

a significant component of human identity that many people celebrate. It is common knowledge

that race is a social construct. In theory, if we were able to admonish the concept of race entirely,

racial stereotypes would disappear, possibly eradicating racism. However, race creates

relationships and communities. Without it, different peoples around the world would lose a part
of their culture. Professor of sociology Miri Song states that as long as conceptions of race

continue to play a fundamental role in structuring and representing our social worlds, we cannot

afford the luxury of treating race (or mixed race) as a problematic artefact.

The topic of race in America is difficult to address, due to our nations history. The

growing population of multiracial, or mixed, people is a change that isnt widely talked about

even though it is the fastest growing demographic in the United States (NPR). For a long time,

the United States and U.K. censuses only included single race options.

There are a number of people that are stuck in limbo between the races that they belong

to. One such individual, Audrey Jacobs, is a freshman student at UNC Charlotte. Her mother is

an immigrant from Liberia, and her father is Coharie Native American. Although she identifies

as Coharie Liberian, she knows the world will always see her as black. She is caught between her

racial identity and the identity prescribed to her by society. I will always be too black to hang

out with lighter races and too white to hang out with the African Americans (Jacobs). NPR

coined a name for her condition on their radio show Code Switch: Racial Imposter Syndrome

(RIS). People that experience RIS feel disconnected from or unable to fit in with the racial

groups that they belong to. Because I dont look mixed, I never felt as though I quite fit in. In a

way, I think I feel guilty for even thinking Im part black, like I dont deserve to identify that

way, says one anonymous caller.

Racial groups have been very defined, but the existence of multiracial people blurs the

line of what it means to be a certain race.

 Works Cited

A Prescription for Racial Imposter Syndrome. Code Switch from NPR, 8 June 2017

Grinberg, Emanuella. Multiracial Identity: Study Looks at Role of Money, Gender and

Religion. CNN, Cable News Network, 28 Jan. 2016

Jacobs, Audrey. Being Multicultural in America. Student Culture Panel, (date) , University of

North Carolina at Charlotte.

Song, Miri. "Generational Change and How We Conceptualize and Measure Multiracial People

and Mixture." Ethnic & Racial Studies, vol. 40, no. 13, 15 Oct. 2017, pp. 2333-2339.

EBSCOhost

Swanson, Mahogany L. So What Are You Anyway? American Psychological Association,

American Psychological Association, Aug. 2013,