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Theme 3:           Pop Culture                    Halle Berry is an African American actress who, like the Ex-Colored man struggled to define herself and her identity throughout her life. She explains in an article on Refinery 29 that as a child she was bullied and constantly felt out of place due to her biracial background. Berry says that the kids at school would call her an "oreo" which referred to having one black and one white parent. Halle Berry's experience is very similar to that of the Ex-Colored Man's. Although Berry decided to embrace her African American identity (unlike the Ex-Colored Man)she reached out to other ideas and hobbies in order to drive her to this embrace. Like the Ex-Colored man, Berry looked to outlets such as music and acting in order to realize how she truly felt about her mixed identity.

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Theme 3:           Pop Culture                    Halle Berry is an African American actress who, like the Ex-Colored man struggled to define herself and her identity throughout her life. She explains in an article on Refinery 29 that as a child she was bullied and constantly felt out of place due to her biracial background. Berry says that the kids at school would call her an "oreo" which referred to having one black and one white parent. Halle Berry's experience is very similar to that of the Ex-Colored Man's. Although Berry decided to embrace her African American identity (unlike the Ex-Colored Man)she reached out to other ideas and hobbies in order to drive her to this embrace. Like the Ex-Colored man, Berry looked to outlets such as music and acting in order to realize how she truly felt about her mixed identity.

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Halle Berry made history when she became the first Black woman to ever win "Best Actress" at the Academy Awards. Her blackness has always been a crucial part of who she is and it's even more obvious among Hollywood's lack of diversity. She opened up to about what it was like for her to grow up as a biracial child and how that experience shaped who she is today.

When she was a child, one decision basically changed the course of Halle Berry's life. Her mother was afraid of all the violence going on at Berry's inner-city high school. So, Berry recalls, she moved the entire family out to the suburbs.

"Now, all of a sudden we were in an all-white school with all-white kids," Berry said. "I got bullied a little bit...because of the color of my skin and at that time we were 'Oreos.' "

"Oreos," she explained, was a reference to having one white parent and one Black parent. Today, it's evolved to mean any Black person who doesn't fit the negative stereotype of blackness. It was hard for Berry endure that, but she thinks it made her even stronger.

"My need to please and my desire to achieve was because I was constantly trying to prove that I was as good as the other white students," she explained. "I felt very less than and I thought if I could beat them at everything, then I can be as good as them. Subsequently, that taught me how to win in life."

And she's definitely won. Now, she can pass what she's learned onto her children. Her daughter, Nahla, is 9 years old and will love mom's help navigating race issues when she's older. Luckily, Berry has so much hope for the future.

"I think my daughter, who is mixed race, might have issues as she grows with her race," Berry said. "Right now, I don't feel like it's an issue and I feel like her generation, they're not making it such an issue like my generation was. We're evolving and we're growing as humans, I think, in that area."

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Halle Berry Gets Real About What It's Like To Grow Up Biracial

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Halle Berry made history when she became the first Black woman to ever win "Best Actress" at the Academy Awards. Her blackness has always been a crucial part of who she is and it's even more obvious among Hollywood's lack of diversity.

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Theme 4:                      Secrecy                     "One black Ph.D. from Purdue University, who is on the job market and asked not to be identified, explained that concern: “I used to check the box next to ‘black’ or ‘African American,’ but I never got interviews. Just out of spite, I’ve checked ‘white’ or left it blank, and I got interviews. When I showed up, I got surprised or disappointed looks. Those interviews didn’t last very long.”In the Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man secrecy is an important part of the novel. The narrator constantly hides his identity from others, or in other words, chooses not to disclose it. Many people who apply for job interviews, who are biracial or simply just African American choose to not provide their race on the application form. As this article explains, often hiding ones race benefits the individual so that they are given a fairer opportunity in society. The Ex-Colored Man often hides his biracial identity or chooses to neglect a part of his culture in order to better his chances of success in society.

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Theme 4:                      Secrecy                     "One black Ph.D. from Purdue University, who is on the job market and asked not to be identified, explained that concern: “I used to check the box next to ‘black’ or ‘African American,’ but I never got interviews. Just out of spite, I’ve checked ‘white’ or left it blank, and I got interviews. When I showed up, I got surprised or disappointed looks. Those interviews didn’t last very long.”In the Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man secrecy is an important part of the novel. The narrator constantly hides his identity from others, or in other words, chooses not to disclose it. Many people who apply for job interviews, who are biracial or simply just African American choose to not provide their race on the application form. As this article explains, often hiding ones race benefits the individual so that they are given a fairer opportunity in society. The Ex-Colored Man often hides his biracial identity or chooses to neglect a part of his culture in order to better his chances of success in society.

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ChronicleVitae for higher ed jobs, career tools and advice

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If you've applied for any kind of an academic job, you've seen it: the form that asks you to disclose your gender, race, and, if applicable, disability. And you've probably taken note of the assurances that your reply is optional, it's confidential, and it will have no influence on the hiring process.

So maybe you've stared at that form and asked yourself: Should I check the race box?

That's a particularly pressing question for candidates of color. Ask them how they feel about disclosing their race, and you'll learn that there are two schools of thought on the matter. While some scholars are wary, others think it might be an asset.

I wanted to get a better read on their attitudes. So this past fall, when I attended the Institute on Teaching and Mentoring conference in Arlington, Virginia, I brought a short, anonymous survey with me. (The conference, which is hosted by the Southern Regional Education Board State Doctoral Scholars Program, gives scholars from underrepresented groups an opportunity to network with each other. There's no other academic conference where you'll find so many Ph.D.'s of color gathered under the same roof, so it's the perfect laboratory.)

Here's what I learned: Most candidates of color do end up filling out the affirmative-action forms in full, but they do so for a variety of different reasons. Of the 324 attendees who took the survey, 272 said that they check the race box.

Some of those applicants do so because they think revealing their race will give them a leg up. "In my field-electrical engineering-companies compete to find qualified black women," said one respondent.

But others complete the form reluctantly. Many fear that leaving the box unchecked will diminish their chances of landing an interview-because employers may assume either that they don't know how to follow directions or that they are trying to hide their race.

"Sometimes I do not want to check my race," wrote one scholar, "but I follow through and still check 'black.' I do so because I want people to know that an intelligent, career-ready, black person is applying."

But what about the 52 respondents who said they leave the box unchecked? Some believe race shouldn't matter if institutions are genuinely committed to inclusion.

Irasema Ortega, an assistant professor of education at the University of Alaska-Anchorage, grew up in Venezuela. "When I came to the United States and started applying for jobs and saw these boxes, I thought, 'What is this? What are they going to do with this information?'" she said. "I was suspicious and I thought to be asked to check off a box was demeaning."

Others worry that racial data may be used to exclude them from candidate pools. One black Ph.D. from Purdue University, who is on the job market and asked not to be identified, explained that concern: "I used to check the box next to 'black' or 'African American,' but I never got interviews. Just out of spite, I've checked 'white' or left it blank, and I got interviews. When I showed up, I got surprised or disappointed looks. Those interviews didn't last very long."

What Are the Forms For?

Federal law prohibits discriminating against job seekers because of race. So why are applicants being asked to volunteer such information?

For compliance, mostly. Since 1965, when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was established to enforce laws against workplace discrimination, universities that receive federal funds have been required to collect and report records of job applicants by gender and race. This information is also used by campus HR departments to track applicant flow, and to monitor how successful they are at recruiting and hiring diverse applicants.

So there's a reason these questions on gender and race typically appear on a separate form: That way, the application itself can go straight to the search committee, and the diversity information can go straight to HR.

M. Renee Baker, who has been the executive director of the office of faculty recruitment and retention at the Rochester Institute of Technology since 2002, outlines how that works at her institution: Information about race is immediately routed to a separate applicant-tracking database that only human-resources personnel can view.

So is there the potential for your racial status to make its way to a search committee? Maybe at some universities, Baker says, where the applicant's information is sent straight to the departments doing the hiring.

But institutions that don't build a pretty strong firewall are in the minority, says Allison M. Vaillancourt, vice president of human resources at the University of Arizona. (Like RIT, Arizona's HR office has access to the demographic data, but it does not share identifying information with search committees or hiring authorities.)

"There might be places that are sharing candidates' information with departments," she says, "but that's not considered best practices."

Will Checking the Box Help You?

That's not to say that search committees find the affirmative-action forms irrelevant. As colleges and universities move to hire more faculty members from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, the racial data sometimes plays a role.

"If a search committee is really serious about diversifying their department," Baker explains, "they might work a little harder to ensure they are including people of color by calling and asking about the makeup of their candidate pool." In that case, an HR officer will offer general numbers: four white candidates, one black candidate, and one who chose not to specify, say.

"We might provide aggregate data," Vaillancourt says. "40 percent of Ph.D.'s in this discipline are women, so it is interesting that only 5 percent of your candidates are women. Why might that be?"

But many committees aren't inclined to ask for that information, Baker says. "I have search committees that will tell you that they'd rather not know the racial background of candidates so they can have a fair and consistent process."

On the flip side of the coin, Vaillancourt says, universities sometimes require search committees' shortlists of finalists to be certified by HR. Let's say a department has chosen three or four finalists, and they are all white men. The search committee might then be told that their list isn't diverse enough, so they should take another pass.

It is unusual, Vaillancourt said, for a search committee to be told to add a certain candidate because of his or her ethnicity.

Or Will It Hurt?

Yet skepticism about the race box remains, and it's not entirely unfounded, says Baker. "Folks are still not sure where they stand in this day of diversity and inclusion," she says. "It's still up to the faculty to determine who is the best qualified, and they tend to clone themselves."

So when candidates ask her if they should disclose their race, she's equivocal. "I tell them that it depends on the university and the people on the receiving end of those credentials. If it's a school that's really serious about diversifying their faculty then I tell them to check the box."

One reason for her caution: There's a big difference between creating a more diverse hiring pool and actually hiring more faculty of color. Increasing numbers of minority candidates are making it deeper into the application process, she says, but it's not clear that those forays are translating to job offers.

Vaillancourt, on the other hand, says most candidates' fears are misplaced. She encourages applicants to go ahead and fill out the form.

"It's a little naive to think that a candidate can keep their race a secret until they arrive on campus," she says. "People Google and talk to others before you come."

So even if you choose not to identify your race on job applications, search committees are still going to draw conclusions from the information you do provide-a "black-sounding" name, say, or a dissertation that addresses racial themes. Your name and CV shouldn't be dead giveaways, but a web search might eliminate any doubts.

In any case, Vaillancourt says, not checking the race box could actually hurt you.

She points to a hypothetical search in which all the minority applicants decline to provide their information. "Searches can be cancelled because the candidate pool is not diverse enough," she says. "So people who are trying to protect themselves against discrimination maybe working against themselves."

Administrators like Vaillancourt, who are committed to diversifying their faculty, admit to finding it frustrating when candidates try to scrub clues about their racial or ethnic background. Unconscious bias is a very real factor in searches, she says, but more colleges are having conversations about what bias looks like and how it works.

Ansley Abraham, director of the SREB's doctoral scholars program, agrees. He told me at the SREB conference that he encourages job applicants to check the race box precisely because race still matters.

"We are not living in a race-neutral or post-racial world, despite what the media pundits say," Abraham said. "We need some measures to give us data to track progress. I hope we get to a place where we no longer need these boxes, but it won't happen in my lifetime."

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The Race Box: an Informal Survey

How it worked: At the SREB conference, I surveyed more than 324 conference attendees, asking them to identify their sex, age, and academic status, and to disclose if they had been on the job market in the last 12 months. I then asked attendees if they check the race box on application forms and to explain why they do or don't.
Why some applicants check the box:
"I tend to completely fill out applications only as a requirement so checking race/ethnicity is more of a habit although I frequently check other because there is never a multi-racial box."

"I want the job to know exactly who they are dealing with. I have nothing to hide.

"I check the race/ethnicity box because I am proud to be who I am. I am an educated woman of color and I want people to know that."

"My field is made up of predominantly white men. I am truly unique and therefore I mark my race."

"I do check it off but hesitantly. I know that is for statistical purposes but I hope that I will be considered as an equal when I apply."

Why some applicants don't:

"I have never checked the box due to a lack of trust regardless of confidentiality statements."

"I don't check the box because it will probably have a negative influence on the hiring decision."

"I do not check race/ethnicity because I hope my credentials speak for themselves, and that race/ethnicity is not the only primary factor under consideration for whether or not I will be hired."

"When I finished my Ph.D. I had to fill out a survey that asked me to check white, black or Asian but there was no box for my ethnicity. So I had to check white. I felt awful finishing my Ph.D. and to check the wrong box to describe who I am."

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If you've applied for any kind of an academic job, you've seen it: the form that asks you to disclose your gender, race, and, if applicable, disability. And you've probably taken note of the assurances that your reply is optional, it's confidential, and it will have no influence on the hiring process.

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The Ex-Colored man grew up in Georgia, raised by a single mother. Through the novel, he (who narrates from a first person perspective) remains nameless. While the narrator was still very young, he and his mother moved to Connecticut. He enrolled in a public school and proved that he was educationally and musically very advanced and talented. He befriended two boys who he find particularly interesting. The boys he becomes friends with are named Shiny and Red. These friendships seem to represent what the narrator sees as the "best" of each race
(black and white). At school the Ex-colored man has an unfortunate situation where he comes to realize that he unlike the many other students at his school is not fully white. The story goes on to explain the many encounters the narrator has that question his identity and his race. The narrator goes to a club where he meets the widow and the millionaire. He rides a train and meets The Solider, The Texan, The Jewish Man, and The Professor. Lastly, the narrator meets "The Girl" who he falls in love with but still wrestles with the concept that he is biracial and whether or not he should tell her. The narrator ends up telling the girl about his true race and she leaves, and he is heartbroken. Yet she returns quite  while later and they get married and have two children. However she dies during the birth of their second child. The Ex-Colored Man is devastated, yet decided it is best for him and his children that he assume his "white" identity. In regard to the context of this story and the time period/location in which it exists click the link the below for further information. Overall, this story takes place in post-Reconstruction era America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

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The Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 freed African Americans in rebel states, and after the Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment emancipated all U.S. slaves wherever they were. As a result, the mass of Southern blacks now faced the difficulty Northern blacks had confronted-that of a free people surrounded by many hostile whites. One freedman, Houston Hartsfield Holloway, wrote, "For we colored people did not know how to be free and the white people did not know how to have a free colored person about them."

Even after the Emancipation Proclamation, two more years of war, service by African American troops, and the defeat of the Confederacy, the nation was still unprepared to deal with the question of full citizenship for its newly freed black population. The Reconstruction implemented by Congress, which lasted from 1866 to 1877, was aimed at reorganizing the Southern states after the Civil War, providing the means for readmitting them into the Union, and defining the means by which whites and blacks could live together in a nonslave society. The South, however, saw Reconstruction as a humiliating, even vengeful imposition and did not welcome it.

During the years after the war, black and white teachers from the North and South, missionary organizations, churches and schools worked tirelessly to give the emancipated population the opportunity to learn. Former slaves of every age took advantage of the opportunity to become literate. Grandfathers and their grandchildren sat together in classrooms seeking to obtain the tools of freedom.

After the Civil War, with the protection of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, African Americans enjoyed a period when they were allowed to vote, actively participate in the political process, acquire the land of former owners, seek their own employment, and use public accommodations. Opponents of this progress, however, soon rallied against the former slaves' freedom and began to find means for eroding the gains for which many had shed their blood.

Black Exodus to Kansas

During Reconstruction freed slaves began to leave the South. One such group, originally from Kentucky, established the community of Nicodemus in 1877 in Graham County on the high, arid plains of northwestern Kansas. However, because of several crop failures and resentment from the county's white settlers, all but a few homesteaders abandoned their claims. A rising population of 500 in 1880 had declined to less than 200 by 1910.

A page of photographs and a township map from a 1906 county land ownership atlas provide evidence that some of these black migrants still owned land in and around this small village. Their impressive determination in an area with few good natural resou rces has resulted in the only surviving all-black community in Kansas.

The Fisk Jubilee Singers

A series of tours by the Fisk Jubilee Singers was one of the most important factors in the spread of the spiritual. The first tour in 1871 was to raise money for Fisk University. It was the hearing of these spirituals as sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers that first made general audiences conscious of their beauty.

The first collection of the Fisk Singers' spirituals was published in 1872. An expanded and reset collection appeared in 1875 as an appendix to a history of the Jubilee Singers. These editions, which were sold as souvenirs at concerts, spread the spirituals in print as the Jubilee Singers themselves spread them in performance. This publication includes only a single spiritual sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, although the Library's music collections include many recordings of the Singers, as well as published music.

An African American Institution of Higher Learning-Wilberforce University

A group of Ohioans, including four African American men, established Wilberforce University near Xenia, Ohio, in 1856, and named it after the famous British abolitionist, William Wilberforce. When the school failed to meet its financial obligations, leaders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church purchased it in 1863.

The articles of association of Wilberforce University, dated July 10, 1863, state that its purpose was "to promote education, religion and morality amongst the colored race." Even though the university was established by and for people of color, the articles stipulated that no one should "be excluded from the benefits of said institution as officers, faculty, or pupils on account of merely race or color."

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The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship Reconstruction and Its Aftermath

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After the Civil War, African Americans were allowed to vote, actively participate in politics, acquire land, seek employment, and use public accommodations. Opponents soon began to find means for eroding these gains.

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Theme 2:         Self-Identity Explanation: Throughout the novel, The Ex-Colored Man struggles to define his true identity. This is due to his constant assimilation to being a part of the white or black community. In an article by The Seattle Times, Rachel Clad explains her personal story on what it is like to be biracial. Clad says, “People look at me and see African American, in my mind, that’s not who I am. I’m both and I’d like to be seen as both.”. Clad explains that identity is something that is different for each person. In contrast to the Ex-Colored Man, Clad wants to be seen through both her idenitities and represent both her cultures. For many other biracial individuals( specifically the Ex-Colored Man)assuming one identity and sticking to it is something that they do not wish to take on. Identity in this novel is an ambiguous, ceaseless thought.

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Theme 2:         Self-Identity Explanation: Throughout the novel, The Ex-Colored Man struggles to define his true identity. This is due to his constant assimilation to being a part of the white or black community. In an article by The Seattle Times, Rachel Clad explains her personal story on what it is like to be biracial. Clad says, “People look at me and see African American, in my mind, that’s not who I am. I’m both and I’d like to be seen as both.”. Clad explains that identity is something that is different for each person. In contrast to the Ex-Colored Man, Clad wants to be seen through both her idenitities and represent both her cultures. For many other biracial individuals( specifically the Ex-Colored Man)assuming one identity and sticking to it is something that they do not wish to take on. Identity in this novel is an ambiguous, ceaseless thought.

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The story of race in the U.S. is changing, and so is the way many of us identify ourselves. That's especially true in the Seattle area, which has a higher concentration of mixed-race people than any other metro area in the country.

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Rachel Clad's parents are a black woman from Detroit and a white man from California who met in the Peace Corps in Africa.

Clad, 26, was born in New Zealand and spent her early years in far-flung parts of the world before her family settled into a middle-class lifestyle in Washington, D.C.

She'll tell you she's multiracial.

"People look at me and see African American," she said. "In my mind, that's not who I am. I'm both and I'd like to be seen as both."

Aaron Hazard's mother was a French-Canadian white woman who met his African-American father at a dance in Boston in the 1930s, at a time when such unions were forbidden.

When he signed up for service during the Vietnam era, the Army listed him as white, although Hazard has never referred to himself as anything other than black.

"It's what my father was and that's what I am," the 62-year-old South Seattle resident said. "Back then there were too many white people to remind me of it."

Barack Obama's rise to prominence has broadened the dialogue around race in a country that has always done a poor job talking about it. And this new attention is prompting some people of mixed race to more closely examine how they define themselves.

That's especially so in Greater Seattle, which has a higher concentration of mixed-race people - nearly 4 percent of the area's population - than any other large metropolitan area in the country.

"One of the biggest mistakes people make in this discussion is assuming there's only one correct way to be biracial," said author Elliott Lewis, who grew up in Eastern Washington and has written about the biracial experience.

"There are all kinds of ways people process their identity, each one equally valid."

These days, multiracial and biracial people see themselves everywhere - in public office, on movie screens, in the corridors at school and on the street.

Regardless of who their parents are, how they define themselves is influenced by many factors: their age, how they look, where they were raised and how they've lived.

And as personal as those circumstances are, they speak of common experiences, too - of the discomfort in overhearing derogatory remarks about one of the racial groups they belong to. Of their uncertainty about which race box to check when they can check only one on forms to enroll in school, get a mortgage or apply for health insurance.

And for many, exasperation with that inevitable query from sometimes perfect strangers: What are you? It's a presumptuous question Lewis calls "racial interrogation."

Increasingly, many racially mixed young people are choosing to define themselves not just by a single race but as a blend of races - multiracial, biracial or with some other label.

Golf legend Tiger Woods, for example, coined the term "cablinasian" to describe his Caucasian, black, American Indian and Asian heritage.

And Obama, in identifying himself as black, is quick to note his mother was a white woman from Kansas and his father a black man from Kenya. In his memoir, "Dreams from my Father," he writes of his struggle in coming to terms with his own racial identity.

"For many of us who share Obama's racial background, there's a certain sense of pride in his achievement," said Michele Peake Andrasik, board president of the Seattle-based MAVIN Foundation, which advocates on behalf of multiracial people.

Darlene Flynn, a former Seattle School Board member who is the daughter of a white mother and black dad, said that "suddenly we have a biracial presidential candidate and that elevates the curiosity, the need to know more about it.

"And if that furthers the conversation around race ... so much the better."
Changing of historical "rules"
In 1961, the year Obama was born, mixed-race marriages like that of his parents were against the law in at least 16 states.

Six years later, the U.S. Supreme Court declared such laws unconstitutional, along with the accompanying "one-drop" rule, which held that any person with any African ancestry be considered black.

In the years that followed, the country witnessed an increase in interracial marriages, although the legacy of the one-drop rule still drives the way some of mixed heritage are seen by others, and how they see themselves.

"There were historical rules ... that if you were mixed and had a parent who wasn't white, then you checked the census box of the parent who wasn't white," said Maria P. P. Root, a Seattle clinical psychologist who has written extensively on mixed race in America.

"There was this gate-keeping around whiteness. The public still hasn't gotten around to the fact that you can be blended."

In 2000, the U.S. Census allowed people for the first time to check more than one box to identify themselves. Nationwide, 6.8 million people did - 2.4 percent of the population.

The concentrations of mixed-race residents are highest in places like Seattle, where state laws never prohibited interracial marriages to begin with, and where the minority population is especially small compared with the white population, resulting in more racial mixing.
Becoming comfortable with racial identity
MAVIN's Andrasik said that despite how society sees them, "multiracial people should choose whatever makes them comfortable."

A clinical health psychologist with a white mother and African-American dad, Andrasik, 37, said that when she was younger she struggled like many of mixed race with self-identity. But over time, she said, she came to identify as African American, in large part because of her work in health research, which focuses on helping disadvantaged black women get better physical and mental-health care.

"For some people, the way they feel about their racial identity can change over time; for others it remains static."

Sometimes it can vary by circumstances.

Seattle City Councilman Bruce Harrell, 49, thinks of himself as being of mixed race - the son of a Japanese mother and an African-American father. "I love my mother and father equally and embraced both their cultures," he said.

When filling out forms, though, Harrell said he selects African American, because "historically there hadn't been a box for mixed heritage."

But ask him to describe himself and the councilman will tell you he's a "big Japanese guy," because that's how he looks. "Most people would not know that my father was a handsome African-American man from Louisiana," he said.

And then there are those who, because of how they look, do not have to confront their racial duality - unless they choose to do so.

As a child, Bryon Friel wondered if he really was adopted because his brother and sister constantly told him that he was.

His two siblings have the dark hair of their Cherokee mother while he, with his blond hair and green eyes, didn't resemble anyone in the family - not even his brown-haired Irish dad. Now the 46-year-old finds he must produce his tribal card to prove to skeptical friends that he is indeed half Native American.

"Unlike most biracial people, I never get asked, 'What are you?' " said Friel, branch manager for Sapphire Design, an engineering staffing agency in Lynnwood. "People simply assume I'm white."
"We embody this whole racial struggle"
Even when given the option of choosing among the boxes that tell a fuller story of who they are, many multiracial people still stick to one.

That's particularly true of those with a black-and-white mix who remember the worst of this country's racial strife and who are more likely than their children and grandchildren to automatically identify as black.

Hazard, who retired from Boeing earlier this year, said, "For many, many years, 'other' was not a choice."

Lewis, 42, the author who spent his youth in Pullman and now works as a freelance TV reporter in Washington, D.C., calls himself multiracial. His parents, both biracial, he said, didn't have the same options.

"If you grew up during segregation there was no biracial water fountain," said Lewis, who wrote the book "Fade: My Journeys in Multiracial America."

"You didn't have the option of saying you're half and half and therefore should drink from both."

Root, the clinical psychologist, said younger people are changing the rules about self-definition, bucking convention that demands they choose a single race.

"The story is changing and the process of how people identify is changing from what it was 20 years ago," she said. "There are a lot more people that look like them now and they have more options."

Take Clad, who grew up in a mostly white middle-class neighborhood in Washington, D.C. That she doesn't identify herself as black sometimes puts her at odds with conclusions others form when they look at her.

Yet to call her black, she said, is to completely misrepresent who she is.

After her parents moved back to the states in the 1990s, she attended a mostly white, private, all-girls school and later graduated from Georgetown University.

"I've traveled and lived in so many parts of the world. This is the only country where what I am seems to matter," Clad said.

In Southeast Asia, some people thought she was Malaysian. In Paris they thought she was French. "Americans have a tendency to want to compartmentalize people" strictly by race, she said. And even at that, "You can't be mixed. It has to be one or the other."

She's felt the sting of racism from both blacks and whites, she said, describing how a group of black girls on a train in D.C. once accused her "trying to look black."

Equally hurtful was the rejection she felt when the parents of a white guy she'd been dating for two years decided for reasons she never learned that it was time for the relationship to end.

"As biracial people, I feel we embody this whole racial struggle," she said. "If you don't identify solely as black then somehow you're seen as distancing yourself from the struggle."
Embracing multiple cultures
Krystle Cobian so equally embraces the cultures of her Mexican father and Filipino mom that she never feels comfortable when forced to choose just one.

Cobian, 21, a Seattle University graduate student from Southern California, said her parents shared the immigrant experience and found wonderful similarities between their two cultures, which in turn enriched their children's lives.

"When I was younger I used to alternate," she said. "If I checked the Latino box last time, I'd try to remember to check Asian the next. I pretty much still do that now."

Stefan Schachtell, a Capitol Hill music producer, moves easily between the cultures of his German father and Mexican mom.

Growing up in Boise, Idaho, he learned both languages, studied in both countries, joined the German American Club and listened for hours to the retelling of his mother's colorful stories of Mexico.

When he was young, other kids taunted him with the nickname "MexiGerm." But now, at 34, he has come to appreciate that description, seeing it as apt.

"I'm proud of the fact that I'm German and Mexican and I would love to include both on a form."
A struggle for acceptance
But some four decades after miscegenation bans were outlawed, race-mixing still remains taboo in some families.

Harrell, the councilman whose late father was black, said "many of my older Japanese relatives explicitly disapproved of my mother marrying my father. It took more than 20 years before they came to accept that he was a good father and husband.

"For my father's mother I don't think that was her first preference for her son, but over the years she accepted my mother as a daughter."

Kouvon Stephens, a 34-year-old warehouse worker from South King County, said that when his white mother from Yakima married his dad, who is black, her parents stopped speaking to her.

And even after they reconciled, Stephens said, his grandparents made no effort to get to know him. He didn't even meet them until he was 12, after his parents divorced and his grandmother came to live with them.

He was angry at them, he said, and "for a long time, there was a wall that I built up."

Eventually, he let it go and developed a relationship with both maternal grandparents, who in turn got to know his 11-year-old daughter - their granddaughter - before they both died.

He said, "My grandmother ended up teaching me a lot of things about life."
Seattle Times news researcher Gene Balk contributed to this report. Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com

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This is who I am: Defining mixed-race identity

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The story of race in the U.S. is changing, and so is the way many of us identify ourselves. That's especially true in the Seattle area, which has a higher concentration of mixed-race people than any other metro area in the country.

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-14th ammendment gave all people born in the United States the right to equal protection under the Constitution (this included recently freed slaves)

-Civil rights act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin by federal and state governments as well as some public places.

-Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by president Lydon Johnson this act outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War

-Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, is a landmark civil rights decision of the United States Supreme Court which struck down all state laws banning interracial marriage

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List of anti-discrimination acts - Wikipedia

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This is a list of anti-discrimination acts (often called discrimination acts or anti-discrimination laws), which are laws designed to prevent discrimination.

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Music/Ragtime
“Musicians have a really big part to play in spreading messages because they’re able to reach a large portion of people on an emotional level. Artists reach people at their heart; it’s the only time we meet in one place and put our differences aside. When you’re in a forum listening to music, all you feel in that moment is love and the understanding.”

Explanation: Alicia Keys is a biracial icon in the music industry. For her (like it is for the Ex-Colored Man) music is an escape from reality where race is not a determining factor in how you feel or what you understand. When the Ex-Colored Man goes to the Club and plays the piano he feels at ease. This environment, of music, allowed biracial individuals like Alicia Keys and the Ex-Colored Man to express themselves emotionally without worrying about the criticism and perceptions of others.

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This article written by Joleen Brantle is a story about her first hand experience being biracial. Brantle, like the Ex-Colored Man, growing up was very unsure about her identity. Brantle, like the Ex-Colored Man tailored her lifestyle to the life of a white individual, for she felt that having "white privilege" would benefit her ability to succeed in her community.

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I haven't always been very racially aware. When I was a child Pokémon cards, cartoons, and school were of vastly greater importance to me. I was raised in a very diverse city with a strong Latino presence. I had friends of every race. Why would one's skin color matter? It certainly didn't to me.

That naivety ended abruptly in 5 th grade. Two significant factors came to a head. I began attending an all-white conservative Church, and my African-American father died; which catalyzed my process of rejecting him to appease the pain he had caused me, the effects of which I'm still working to undo.

Until I started attending this Church, I really hadn't been in many, if any, racially segregated spheres. So it was a bit of a culture shock when I met people who referred to me as a "little colored girl" and told me interracial marriage, which I am proudly the product of, is a sin. But I loved these white people! As a child I always sought to please and generally took everything an adult said as the infallible truth (that actually began changing around this time). These people looked just like my mother and were very kind to me with the exception of the occasional offhand, casually racist, remark. What was I supposed to think?

Unfortunately, my father passed away a year or so before I became a part of this Church. He was from a time that didn't put a huge emphasis on declarations of love, hence I have no memories of hugging my father or receiving any sort of affection from him. I knew from a young age that he had really hoped for his first-born to be a son. While he was alive, I responded to this a challenge, I sought to make my father want me by being the smartest, the best athlete, and the strongest in my class. I even cut my hair short and wore boys' clothes as soon as my parents stopped dressing me. But it was all to no avail. And when he died, the energy I had used to seek his love was redirected to feed resentment. Within two years of his death, I wanted nothing to do him.

Consequently, I began to mold myself and my values in opposition to his. He was divorced, so I vowed I would never do such a thing. He was estranged from his family, so I tried to build bonds with mine. He was an angry and occasionally abusive man, so I fought to control my stronger emotions. He was a Brantley, so I wanted to take my mother's maiden name. Most of all, he was Black, so I wouldn't be.

Sadly, these two events, my father's death and my attendance at an all-white Church coincided with fateful timing. I deeply resented my father and all his traits. I aspired to be nothing like him. At the same time, I was embraced by this old-fashioned, and thus, perhaps forgivably, slightly racist Caucasian Church. This had disastrous effects upon my psyche.

Obviously, my rejection of my Black side and desperate clinging to my White side manifested itself in myriad ways. If someone ever referred to me as black, I immediately and vehemently informed them of my specific racial makeup, "I'm 5/8 white, I'm Mixed not Black"! I refused to listen to any music associated with the darker race, like hip hop or rap, for fear of people stereotyping me with "those other Black people". I regularly made fun of gospel music, and I proudly told anyone who asked that I didn't know a single Beyoncé song. Moreover, I routinely called African-Americans "ghetto", as that was one of the worst insults imaginable to my mind.

Furthermore, I was attracted to boys from every ethnicity except African. I told my Caucasian best friend that if she had children with the fair-haired and fair-skinned guy she liked, they would have the perfect children: blond hair, blue eyes, and lily white skin. I worshipped at the altar of Eurocentric beauty ideals. I hated my curly hair and was embarrassed when my skin tanned to a deep coffee hue in the summer. When my peers told me "I talked white" I smiled at their 'compliment' and was proud. I fantasized about marrying a white guy and having children with lighter skin than me and eventually purging the despised Black out of my line. I hated, and was deeply ashamed of, my African-American heritage.

I cannot recall an exact moment when I first started on my journey to self-acceptance; a path upon which I still find myself treading. But if I had to pinpoint a time, it would be when I discovered Jennifer Beals (my story is yet another example of the importance of representation in media). When I found out that this brilliant, talented, enlightened actress was biracial like myself, it was like a lightbulb went off. Someone of African-American and Caucasian ancestry could succeed AND embrace their full identity! I never doubted my potential to achieve great things, but I always envisioned myself doing so in spite of my black half.

While I had prided myself for years on my expansive knowledge in comparison with my age, this discovery demonstrated to me that I was unforgivably ignorant in an area so key to who I am. And so, like I do, I studied. My eyes were opened to how the media subliminally affects our perception of what is and is not attractive. I found out how pivotal hair is to how one is viewed. I discovered how the War on Drugs had impacted Black men and how that in turn impacted the African-American family unit. I saw the unfair focus on European history in school, which fosters the current negative ideas about Africa. I learned of the prevalence of casual racism. I stumbled upon the fact that the KKK, and other similar organizations, are still in operation. I was astounded by schools, colleges, and organizations that fought integration, even to their detriment, and sometimes even into the 21 st century. I realized where some of my self-hatred had originated. I began to research famous mixed people and their stories spoke to me.

I learned about Solange Knowles and her proud embracing of her natural hair. (I learned what the term "natural hair" meant for that matter!) I learned about Melissa-Harris Perry, a biracial intellectual who writes about race between teaching classes at top-notch Universities, and how she has repeatedly led national dialogues about tough racial issues. I learned of Alicia Keys' and Mariah Carey's heritage; they are both huge cultural icons who don't try to hide their roots. I learned of best-selling author Heidi Durrow's experiences growing up half Danish while being raised by her African-American grandmother in Oregon. And I learned of Barack Obama's inspiring story as an American of diverse roots who climbed the political ranks to become the first man of color to lead the free world.

I discovered the pivotal fact that in the conversation about Black and White relations, which all too often seems racially dichotomous, there is a word for me: Mulatto. And I know some people are offended by that term, but it meant so much to me to discover there was a word that described my unique ancestry. Millions of people are mixed, or blended, or biracial; but I, I am Mulatto.

Most of all, I came to see that I was a member of this vast, diverse, and truly beautiful community. One that has contributed immeasurably to society. One that has been on the right side of history and the wrong side. One that has struggled and overcome. One that I am immensely proud to be a part of.

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The Struggle To Define My Identity: Growing Up Biracial

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I haven't always been very racially aware. When I was a child Pokémon cards, cartoons, and school were of vastly greater importance to me. I was raised in a very diverse city with a strong Latino presence. I had friends of every race. Why would one's skin color matter?

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The sources presented in the curation are all unique and provide different meanings and proofs to connect real world ideas to the novel, The Autobiography of an Ex Colored Man. These sources are things such as a list of laws created to prevent racism, articles that are written by famous people of today's world, and songs or pieces of art. The purpose of this work was to use real life scenarios and stories from icons in the media and people all around the globe to prove that the story described in this novel is something that persists today and is relatable.

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"The Color Line", White Privilege
"Each group’s experience was historically distinct, and was neither entirely unique nor reducible to a universalized, atemporal narrative of common suffering."
https://ingeveb.org/articles/beyond-the-color-line-jews-blacks-and-the-american-racial-imagination
Explanation: W.E.B. Du Bois explains how the "color line" is something that is historically specific and is relative to each individual's situation. Du Bois's theory is proven true through the narrator's experience being "on" the color line. Similarly, the narrator has the ability to choose which society he wants to be a part of at whichever time it is most beneficial to him. So in the Ex-Colored Man's case, he uses white privilege to make his life better in certain siutations by assuming a "white" identity.

"Passing"

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I'd never seen my mother so afraid.

"Promise me," she pleaded, "you won't tell anyone until after I die. How will I hold my head up with my friends?"

For two years, I'd waited for the right moment to confront my mother with the shocking discovery I made in 1995 while scrolling through the 1900 Louisiana census records. In the records, my mother's father, Azemar Frederic of New Orleans, and his entire family were designated black.

The discovery had left me reeling, confused and in need of answers. My sense of white identity had been shattered.

My mother's visit to my home in Illinois seemed like the right moment. This was not a conversation I wanted to have on the phone.

But my mother's fearful plea for secrecy only added to my confusion about my racial identity. As did her birth certificate that I obtained from the state of Louisiana, which listed her race as "col" (colored), and a 1940 Louisiana census record, which listed my mother, Avera Frederic, as Neg/Negro, working in a tea shop in New Orleans. Four years later, she moved north and married my white father.

Reluctantly, I agreed to keep my mother's secret. For 17 years I told no one, except my husband, my two children and two close friends that my mother was passing as white. It was the longest and most difficult secret I'd ever held.

My mother's pale, olive skin and European features appeared to belie the government documents defining her as African American, allowing her to escape that public designation for most of her adult life.

In the silence of those 17 years, I tried to break through my mother's wall of silence. But every time I tried, she politely but firmly changed the subject. Her refusal to talk about her mixed race only fueled my curiosity. How had she deceived my racist white father? Why was she so fearful and ashamed of her black heritage?

Using my skills as a seasoned mystery author, I started sifting through the details of her life, looking for clues that would help me understand her. But this real-life mystery only intensified as I tried to sort truth from fiction.

My mother had always told me that she was reluctant to visit her family of origin in New Orleans because she hadn't been raised by either parent and there were just too many sad memories. Now I wondered if she was really just afraid that if we visited we'd meet family members who were not passably white? On several occasions her mother and her sister visited us in Ohio. But they appeared white and no one hinted otherwise. Did her brother never visit us because he didn't appear white?

I wondered now why she'd never been able to show me photographs of my grandfather growing up. Was it because he was visibly black? And could my mother's avoidance of the sun be attributed to her fear that her skin would darken too much? Then there was her obsession with makeup, even wearing makeup to bed.

Piecing her life together, I marveled at how she endured the racism of living in the predominantly white suburb of Parma, Ohio, with a racist husband. My father's racism was a reflection of his upbringing in a close-knit Cleveland ethnic neighborhood. Though he never used the N-word, he was still vocal about his bigotry, referring to African Americans using other racial slurs, deriding blacks for what he perceived as their lack of ambition and criminality. Unknowingly deriding his wife, my mother.

My mother reprimanded him with little vigor. Was she afraid of bringing too much attention to the race issue? Did his racist remarks beat on her like a hard, cold rain? Or had she convinced herself that she deserved it for the lie that sat at the heart of their marriage?

In escaping the Jim Crow south, coming north and marrying my white father, she must have thought gaining white privilege was worth the price of losing family ties and her authentic self. The irony was that in gaining white privilege, in passing for white, the onslaught of racism was splayed open to her. Its ugly face could now be shared with her, a "white" woman who would understand and possibly agree.

Every day she had to live with the paradox of what W.E.B. Du Bois called "two-ness," the ambivalence of people of mixed European and African ancestry. If a mixed-race person is white enough to pass, how does that person deal with the trappings of a racist culture where you're forced to choose a side?

As if in self-defense or maybe retaliation for my father's racism, she imbued me with a moral imperative to respect all people regardless of their color. A gifted storyteller, she related stories of New Orleans and the bigotry she witnessed. As a child I listened with rapt attention to the story of the old black woman on Canal Street burdened with packages who didn't move off the sidewalk for a white man. He shoved her aside like so much trash and called her the n-word.

"That wasn't right," my mother told me. "But that's how it was in New Orleans back then."

Now I understood the clues concealed in that story. That she was hinting at her hidden self or maybe preparing me to accept the part of her she'd left behind in New Orleans and her reason for doing that.

After my mother's death in 2014 I was freed of my vow. In what can only be called serendipity, I was presented with an opportunity to solve the uncertainly of my racial heritage. PBS's " Genealogy Roadshow" was looking for family mysteries related to New Orleans. I appeared on the show in January 2015.

Three days later, my mother's family found me. My "new" Frederic family welcomed me with generosity and love, neither judging my mother nor rejecting me. At the welcome home party in New Orleans, I met my new uncle, two aunts, and slews of cousins. We were every shade of skin from darkest ebony to whitest white and all the shades in between. Suddenly, I was part of a multiracial family.

Armed with "Genealogy Roadshow's" confirmation of my racial heritage and wanting to understand that heritage, I traced the Frederic family back to 18th-century Louisiana. I discovered slave owners, enslaved women, and free people of color. Through the centuries I saw how shifting racial laws had affected my family, boxing them into racial categories that hindered them. My redemptive journey became the basis for my book, " White Like Her: My Family's Story of Race and Racial Passing."

I suspect there are many white Americans are unaware of their own mixed-race heritage. Our country's hidden history of racial mixing is embedded in many Americans' DNA whether they know it or not, belying the notion of racial certainty. It's embedded in my DNA, which is 9 percent African. But although I could check "other" or "multiracial" when asked my race on a form, I still identify as a white woman. At this late point, it would be disingenuous of me to claim any other identity. I've enjoyed white privilege my entire life.

I will never forget my mother's haunted look as she said, "How will I hold my head up with my friends?" I bear no rancor toward her for not telling me of her mixed-race heritage. I feel only sorrow that, even after I knew, she was unable to share with me her feelings about who she really was and the life she had lived. Even so, I find solace and pride in finally knowing the truth of my own heritage and the mixed-raced family of which I am a part.

Gail Lukasik is the author of "White Like Her: My Family's Story of Race and Racial Passing," four mystery novels and more. She lives in Illinois with her husband.

'What is racist?' the talk show host asked Tuesday

White women who call 911 on black people for innocuous behaviors are rolling the dice with their lives

A fellow passenger recorded the interaction and posted it to social media

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My mother spent her life passing as white. Discovering her secret changed my view of race. - The Lily

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I'd never seen my mother so afraid. "Promise me," she pleaded, "you won't tell anyone until after I die. How will I hold my head up with my friends?" For two years, I'd waited for the right moment to confront my mother with the shocking discovery I made in 1995 while scrolling through the 1900 Louisiana census records.

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“Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields / Sold in the market down in New Orleans / Scarred old slaver knows he's doing alright / Hear him whip the women just around midnight.”

This song "Brown Sugar" by the Rolling Stones is an example of Art Culture in which racism and discrimination is very prevalent. The lyrics above, show how historical forms of racism towards biracial individuals (as well as those simply of African heritage) is still demonstrated in media today. This song connected to the concepts of discrimination in the time period this novel was written in.

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Blackness V. Whiteness in the Work Place
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/09/everyday-racism-america-black-white-spaces
Explanation: This article relates to the daily life a biracial individual experiences. In today's society African American people constantly feel as though they are being stereotyped by others.T he Ex-Colored Man never felt as though he had a place until he went to The Club and met the millionaire and the widow. Today many biracial people feel as though they do not have a role in society, this often occurs in the workplace. Biracial people feel that they have to work twice as hard in order to prove themselves.

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How Are Black–White Biracial People Perceived in Terms of Race?

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Understanding the answer—and why black and white Americans’ responses may differ—is increasingly important in a multiracial society.