Mexico held filipino slaves for a time. I am half filipino half black so…Mexican men and women start speaking to me a lot in spanish, i can only guess it's because my appearance makes me feel familiar to them as they are used to seeing asiatic african people in mexico.

i also wonder why the word bi-racial seems to mean a black white mix to so many people. people are always skeptical if i say i'm bi-racial until i say i'm half-filipino. then they say “oh”.

excellent post.

But I must say that my biracial kids are exactly that – biracial. They are two things at once. They are white yet they are not; they are black yet they are not.

As a parent I am responsible to raise them in a way that reflects their reality. It would be wrong to force them into some form of “blackness” (who would define that, btw?) just as it would be wrong to force them into some form of “whiteness.” Add to that we (the parents) need to also make sure they know and retain their Haitian culture.

I am bothered by how casually some of the authors here would put kids like mine into a box, which makes me suspect they have not had biracial kids.

What's so tragic about that is that the black partners ALLOW it to happen.

How dreadful.

What's so tragic is that the black partner ALLOWS it to happen.

How dreadful.

im puerto rican
my father is asturian(spain),french,and corsican(france)
my mother is half black half canary islander(spain)

they are mostly black but arte of more than one race

no need for anger its correct either way no need to omit one race over the other

and about the man with the green eyes obv he has some caucasian blood he has deffinate features. his parents maybe “black” but theres deffinately a mixture. most american blacks and american whites have some degree of native american european and african admixture somewhere in the family tree

obamas children have a white grandmother so they are mixed and are able to celebrate her side too they are not denying there blackness

I say all of this and I speak from the perspective of one who has a White dad myself–why? Because I went through the stage of wanting to do exactly that–”cheerlead” a biracial identity in my early teen years and because of very eye-opening personal experience and a lot more study of Black history (my history), I've come to the personal conclusion that a 'biracial' label (for me anyway) is unececessary, politically irrelevant, and redundant (for as the article said above) the Black community is ALREADY multiracial at it's core.

Just wanted to say that this article makes great and socially relevant points, that I think more people need to keep in mind the next time they jabber on about who is “biracial”.

Caucasian, Black, and Asian are races, Mexican isn't a race. Native Americans fall under the Asian group. It is to my understand that many Mexicans consider themselves mestizos, a blend of European (white) and Native Americans, and a few others either identify soley as white or Indigenous. Surely you can understand this since you stated that most Black Americans are multiracial. Well, that applies to Mexicans, too. I don't see why people can't grasp this concept.

I do understand that racial categories is a social construct and that ultimately there is but one race but for the sake of this topic I felt the need to break it down to you.

So, that “biracial” baby really is NOT biracial much like Obama's daughters aren't biracial.

So in keeping in line with the technical terms, Obama's mother is WHITE, and his father is BLACK therefor Obama is BIRACIAL.

Once again Mexican IS NOT A RACE.

honest-to-goodness, her cheeks were the only thing visible in the ultrasound. It's all we knew about her – that she'd have the most pinchable cheeks..LOL