**Go to their Pepsi grant challenge page and vote daily to help Project RACE (and you can also text 110401 to 73774 once a day) win a grant for a cause that makes sense: http://www.refresheverything.com/project-race. Voting ends on 12/31/11.
You’ve all heard me talking about being multiracial before, and I actually am getting to know a group that is really passionate about the cause for proper racial identity on forms. As we become even more interrelated in this global community, the ability to define ourselves by a specific race or bloodline becomes diluted because we are (usually) connecting with the individual (who is complex) and not the group identity (which is too 2D). I’ve written about this before here and at the Urban Times, because I’ve spent a lifetime filling out ridiculous government and medical forms that try to pigeonhole me into a uniform identity. Needless to say, I seriously despise that stupid “other” box, because it’s as close as it got for me back in the day! Even today, the data collection is dismal, which is incomprehensible in today’s world of technology and social communications. Of course, if you’re in the minority, then you’re not making the rules…
Project RACE, which has been around since 1991, is at the forefront of the multiracial identity fight. I have the distinct pleasure of getting to know their Executive Director, Susan Graham, who advocates for kids and adults who are multiracial like me, and wish that I’d known about them much earlier. Well, the video above is their latest cause in order to push for the people’s ability to have proper multiracial identification on medical, school, and governmental forms. They’ve entered the Pepsi grant challenge to win support for the next phase of their ongoing mission, and their reasons are something that non-multiracial people probably don’t consider:
- Proper identification will assist in targeted medical research of disease as related to bloodlines and other racial characteristics
- Clear and full identification shows our complete lineage and loses group conformity requirements
- Proper racial identification will help in making laws that are fair and balanced towards the true greater good
- We’re already collecting data, so it should be done in a completely factual way that respects the entire human population
- Dignity will finally be restored to all of us as we are no longer labels, but truly humans
There are a lot more reasons if I really thought about it, but it’s actually tiring because I’ve contended with this issue my entire life and it hasn’t changed much in that length of time. The good thing is that as multiracial becomes the larger group within the population, maybe we’ll finally be able to get off of this ridiculous need to hold one nationality (or _______) over another. I mean seriously, look how great that’s worked for us so far. There are all sorts of ways to be proud of our independent heritages without turning it into a perpetual contest. Be proud of where you came from, but don’t shove it into everyone’s face. We all have reasons to be proud of our cultural achievements. It’s what makes this world such a vibrant place when we concentrate on the right things. Don’t keep making it a dividing issue when the majority of the world really wants global to mean one community.
And no one should have to even think about answering the question, “What are you?”, when someone tries to label you for their own comfort or understanding. Though my standard answer today is still “human”.
