I Do Choose To Run: Personal boxes and the ethics of racePosted in Articles, Identity Development/Psychology, New Media, Social Science, United States on 2012-04-09 15:13Z by Steven |
I Do Choose To Run: Personal boxes and the ethics of race
The Stanford Daily
2012-04-09
In an eloquently argued New York Times Sunday Review article on March 16th, entitled “As Black as We Wish to Be,” author Thomas Chatterton Williams advances a provocative and thought-provoking argument: “mixed-race blacks have an ethical obligation to identify as black — and interracial couples share a similar moral imperative to inculcate certain ideas of black heritage and racial identity in their mixed-race children, regardless of how they look.”
Is this a good argument? Do mixed-race individuals have an ethical obligation to identify as members of one race, rather than many or none? And is there a special obligation in the case of mixed-race African-Americans, given this country’s long history of racial discrimination?
I must respectfully disagree with Mr. Williams and answer all three with “no.”…
Read the entire opinion piece here.