Where will multiracials go? How will they inhabit their own country, the great United States of America?

Let's get one thing straight. There are plenty of multiracials in the U.S. already, albeit they are hidden and attached to other, "defined-as-not-multiracial" groups:

* Like the millions of Dominicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Panamanians and other Latinos who, essentially, have a great deal of "racial" mixture but who are attached to the "Hispanic" group (which does not overly stress its multiracial character);

* Like the millions of people who are mixed, but, owing to a practice of including those of partial Indian ancestry as being in the "white" group, are attached to the powerful "white" group;

* Like the millions of people who are mixed, but, owing to One Drop appropriating those of partial African ancestry as "black", are attached to the "black" group (which is not powerless).

Those of you who have followed my writings over the years have probably noticed a certain degree of optimism regarding the eventual "normalcy" of the idea of being multiracial in the U.S.

What is specified above seems to point out formidable obstacles to multiracials becoming a group to be reckoned with. So why the optimism on my part?

Perhaps because I never looked to group identity politics as a way to multiracial salvation. Don't get me wrong.....it must be horrible going up against the bloc-like thinking of the established groups, knowing that there is no huge, solid multiracial interest group out there. It's just that I feel that there are large groups of people who go their own way, choosing to live their lives without being "racially" muscle-bound in their thinking. These people are multiracial....but they are also "white", Latino, Asian AND "black". I have always believed that the numbers of these people are constantly growing and the reason no one hears from them is the same reason negative headlines always appear on the front page of the paper instead of those praising good works.

Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis had a slogan, "Just Win, Baby!"

My slogan is..... "Just Live, Baby!"

And, if there are any two items concerning the social landscape of the United States that are crucially important to multiracials, they don't include becoming another group with the same mind-set as the established "racial" interest groups. Rather, they are:

(a) The necessity for continued and increased intermarriages and

(b) The increased commonality of more and more people who DON'T think as members of racial boxes......WHATEVER race.

William Javier Nelson, Ph.D.

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