The Perils of Compartmentalization

When I arrived from California as an incoming graduate student at Teachers College, one of the first things I attempted to find was a large-scale supermarket—a task that proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated. Without a car or friends nearby, I ventured on foot to the market nearest to my on-campus dormitory and was pleasantly surprised at my discovery. Though modest in physical infrastructure, this market was just like any other that I had ever visited; every item was organized and stacked according to predetermined labels. The chips were aligned, the vegetables were neatly displayed in an aisle, and the frozen meat section was impeccably synchronized—chicken, pork, beef.

As I completed my journey around this now ubiquitous layout of products, I began to wonder if such compartmentalization and categorization had irreversibly infiltrated other parts of society. Much to my disdain, they have. From the federally administered census bureau surveys to a university education, society conveniently places people, objects, and services into distinct boxes without granting due appreciation to the intersections that lie between these boxes. Categorization may facilitate an efficient shopping experience, but when it permeates into politics and begins to govern our methods of social understanding, it has gone too far.

The most compelling example that I can elicit relates to a subject of pivotal importance for the nation and the world: the 2008 American presidential election. Barack Obama, who recently spoke about his commitment to service at Columbia’s Lerner Hall, is uniformly referred to as “black.” Media reports unabashedly proclaim that if Barack Obama were elected president this November, then he will be America’s first black president. On a multitude of levels, I stridently object to this mischaracterization of Barack Obama and the history that his victory would launch. Barack Obama, whose mother is Caucasian and father is Kenyan, would not be America’s first black president if elected; he would more accurately be described as America’s first bicultural and biracial president. This is an important distinction that must be made.

In the black-white paradigm of racial relations that has been an integral component of this nation’s founding, a paucity of attention has been consistently bestowed upon biracial, bicultural, and multiracial individuals. The relatively small number of interracial marriages in this country is no excuse for depriving this community of a potent voice that has withstood the complexities of personal identity to achieve a societal stature beyond anyone’s imagination. Thus, I sincerely hope that the media, both liberal and conservative, would swiftly correct this misnomer and label Barack Obama for what he is: bicultural and biracial.

To my understanding, the cardinal reason why Barack Obama is being branded “black” is simply for no other reason than his skin color—which, by the way, is not by any conventional definitions, black. Obama, like other mixed-race individuals in America, is the victim of a society that prefers to attach labels on and insert into categories those people who unambiguously do not fit into austerely sealed boxes. What this election has shown is that Americans, in general, with exceptions of course, are unable to differentiate a child who is a product of one African American parent and a child who is a product of two African American parents. Debates abound regarding the importance of such clarifications, but to anyone who grows up answering questions, both internally and externally, about which pre-ordained ethnic/racial categories they are forced to identify with, this clarification is of monumental importance. We owe it to the multiracial and multicultural Americans from Sacramento, Calif., to Scranton, Pa., to extend appropriate recognition to their unique experiences in life.

However, on the other hand, there are many historic reasons why Americans instinctively identify Barack Obama as a “black” politician instead of a multicultural one—ranging from the one-drop rule to the legacy of entrenched discrimination. Someone once told me: “Being black is more than just genetics. It’s a state of mind.” Like any good quote, it spawns more questions than answers. Does one’s skin color permanently determine one’s outlook and experience on life? Do Obama and other African Americans consistently equate one’s skin color to the biases and prejudices that have become institutionalized in American society? And to what extent do other races feel that the foundation of their color affiliations has transformed from the physical to the psychological? These questions, like the subject itself, will need to be probed in greater depth. As for Obama’s own definition of his intricate racial identity, I cannot speak for him, but I am confident that this is a discussion that has been profoundly missing in our nation’s political discourse.

Dennis Yang is a first year Ed.M. student in international educational development at Teachers College.