Can we choose our racial identities? Should we?

Posted in Articles, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive on 2015-12-23 01:33Z by Steven

Can we choose our racial identities? Should we?

Quartz
2015-12-18

Marcie Bianco


One human race, divided. (Fanqiao Wang)

Can we choose our racial identities? Should we?

In 2015, race as an identity has seemed more malleable than ever. As Bonnie Tsui, author of American Chinatown, wrote in this week’s New York Times Magazine, Americans will necessarily develop more nuanced readings of race as the country becomes more diverse.

“Multiracial Americans are on the rise, growing at a rate three times as fast as the country’s population as a whole, according to a new Pew Research Center study released in June,” Tsui writes. This means that “the need to categorize people into specific race groups will never feel entirely relevant to this [younger] population, whose perceptions of who they are can change by the day, depending on the people they’re with.”

Yet even as Americans recognize the fluidity of identity, it’s crucial to remember the complex, systemic inequities that continue to be tied to racism. To call for an end of “race” as a category that divides us is hopeful. But to suggest that America is a “post-racial” country would be outright delusional…

Read the entire article here.

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