Does Growing Population of Multiracial Kids Portend a Future with Less Racism?Posted in Articles, Audio, Census/Demographics, Identity Development/Psychology, Interviews, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2017-06-13 18:02Z by Steven |
Does Growing Population of Multiracial Kids Portend a Future with Less Racism?
WVTF Public Radio
Roanoke, Virginia
2017-06-13
Sandy Hausman, WVTF/RADIO IQ Charlottesville Bureau Chief
 A growing number of families in this country include people of different races. Credit NPR |
Fifty years ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws that prevented people of different races from marrying in Virginia. Now, one of every six newlyweds choose partners of a different race or ethnicity. So does this mean America is on the road to ending racism? And how do mixed race kids think of themselves. Those questions puzzled a UVA alum whose new book offers intriguing answers. Sandy Hausman has that story.
Hephzibah Strmic-Pawl grew up in rural Virginia where race consciousness was strong. Back then, the U.S. census bureau recorded only a handful of possible races for residents of the state. Now, however, that has changed.
“Now we have 63 possible racial categories,” Strmic-Pawl says.
And looking at the younger members of our population, the assistant professor of sociology was startled by the number of kids who don’t fit neatly into a single racial category…
[Hephzibah Strmic-Pawl is the author of Multiracialism and Its Discontents: A Comparative Analysis of Asian-White and Black-White Multiracials.]
Read the entire story here. Listen to the story (00:02:14) here.