Defining Race in America is Getting Complicated

     For my first job out of college, my boss was a tall middle-aged handsome black man. Our office was in a glass high-rise in downtown Columbus, Ohio.
     One day my boss brought a file over to my desk. “Will you take this to Betty? She’s on the fourth floor.”
“Where will I find her?”  
     “You’ll see her right when you get off the elevator. She’s the receptionist, and the only African-American on the floor,” he said. Eager to leave my cubical, I jumped up and walked quickly toward the elevator with file in hand.
     Once I stepped off the elevator on the fourth floor, I walked toward the woman sitting at the receptionist’s desk. The nameplate on the desk read “Betty,” but the woman at the desk was clearly white. I thought maybe I didn’t hear him right and I was on the wrong floor.
     I went back to the elevator, headed toward my boss’s office. “Did you say the fourth floor?” He said, “Yes.”
     I told him there was white woman at Betty’s desk, so she must not be in today.
     My boss laughed. “That’s Betty, she’s just a very light black woman,” he said. From that moment on, I have been confused by how people define their race. Here was a case when a woman had skin lighter than my own (a blond white man), yet considered herself African-America.
     To make things even more complicated, I met a handsome guy from South Africa. He moved to Silicon Valley to work in technology. He is a tall white guy with brown hair, and considered himself African-American. I told him African-Americans are black, not white. He said Africa is a huge continent that has people of all colors, and he was born and raised there so he’s African-American. I didn’t argue the point.
     While on a plane recently, a clean-cut professional African-American man was sitting next to me. We started talking about politics. I believe blacks and whites are eager to discuss race in politics with one another but fear it could end up in a confrontation, so the subject is often avoided.
     “It’s amazing that an African-American may actually become president of the United States,” he said to me.
“Do you really believe that?” I asked. “Believe that he’ll become president? Yes, I do,” he responded.
     “No, do you believe he’s African American?” I asked. “His mother is a pure blood Caucasian. That makes him half white, half black, not one or the other.”
     “Well, you are right, he’s not really African-American,” the gentleman said. To make such a claim denies half of his genetic heritage and culture.
     I believe we have arrived at a place in our society to acknowledge that not everyone belongs to one race or ethnic group. In fact, they may belong to two or three. Take Tiger Woods, for example, who has a very mixed background of Caucasian, Asian and African.
     In white circles, the question comes up, “why does Barack consider himself black when his mother is white?” This is a good question. As a relative said to me recently, “does he have something against his white heritage?”
     Decades ago, a mere drop of African blood would label a person “black” in the eyes of Caucasians. Not any longer. Our society has moved beyond the “black or white” days of the past, and we have started to accept people for their true genetic heritage.
     Two of my cousins married Asians. They had children, making them half Caucasian, and half Asian. However, they don’t consider themselves one race over another, but rather a mixed.
     The same holds true for ethnic groups such as Latinos. How do you define “people of color?” I’ve asked several people this question and get multiple answers. Some say it includes blacks, Latinos and Asians. Others say it only includes blacks and Latinos. But how do we identify Latinos? What I’ve learned in California is that Latinos can’t be identified just by the color of their skin, how they look, their culture or their language.
     There are blond Latinos who are as white as anyone from northern Europe, and many people who identify themselves as Latino don’t speak Spanish, and have been integrated into American culture just like any white Midwesterner.
     A few years ago, a friend in San Jose told me he started dating a Latino guy from Mexico City. The new boyfriend’s first and last name is Hispanic. When we finally met, I was surprised. The Mexican guy had light blond hair, and blue eyes. And he considered himself Latino. Would he fall into the category “people of color?”
     San Jose has the second highest population of mixed race people in the country after Seattle. Due to an outcry from many mixed race people, the United States census changed its survey to include people of mixed race rather than choosing “other.”
     We have reached a time in our country’s history when millions of Americans are of mixed race and culture. To be exact, Obama is African-Caucasian-American; no one can argue that fact. America is not simply black and white any longer. We are a people of many colors and multiple races all wrapped into one person.
     In California, people are obsessed with race. We discuss different races as if we are vastly different. I’ve discovered we are more alike than different. We are all religious, nonreligious, friendly toward gays and hateful toward gays, macho and feminine; some being family oriented while others are not.
     A Korean friend told me she didn’t come out to her parents as a gay woman until later in life. “You know, Koreans aren’t accepting of the gay thing,” she said. Well, neither are a lot of Caucasians as we’ve seen with most “white” dominated states voting to ban gay marriage.
     We should move away from trying to pigeon-hole people into one category or another just by the color of their skin, culture or language. In America, there is more likely to be a lot of crossover in race and culture.
     As I discussed with the African-American next to me on the plane, “I wish the media would stop talking about Obama’s race, and talk more about the issues that matter.”
      “You know what? I agree,” he replied.

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