I have finished reading Beverly Daniel Tatum's Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and overall, I thought this book was decent.
As I stated many times throughout these posts, I feel that Tatum should have included different supportive evidence than she did. There was a lot of statistical information that was incorporated in this book, but it didn't always seem like it was doing much to help develop ideas. At times, the amount of just pure data, with no commentary, was extremely overwhelming and I had a hard time focusing on everything going on. On the other hand, I found these last forty pages very interesting because they talked about biracial kids and how they identify.
Essentially all minority groups are addressed and we see their points of view and I think that now, having read a lot about how each group is treated, I have a good understanding of how many variations of racism there truly are. The discussion about biracial kids is something that I personally haven't heard about, but Tatum includes a lot of kids' perspectives of themselves.
1. the singular identity (either exclusively Black or exclusively White)
2. the border identity (defining oneself as biracial)
3. the protean identity (shifting back and forth between Black, White, and biracial), and
4. the transcendent identity (rejecting all racial categories) (307)
These four identifications are exemplified by different people and parts of their stories are shared with us. As we read more, it is explained why people might choose to identify one way over another; identifications correlate with what their physical appearance is and the culture they're raised in. Sadly, some people who choose to identify as biracial are not seen by the general population as such, but rather race or the other. Chris is a biracial woman says, "her identity is 'biracial' yet she is painfully aware that other people don't see her that way. 'I experience the world as a black woman.'" (311). I'm sure there are people who understand Chris when she tells them she has one White parent and one Black parent, and that justifies that she is biracial. However, it's hard not to label a person who is biracial as one race or another before you meet them.
As Tatum writes, the assumptions people make about others' race identities invalidate how people feel. To help make her point, I think Tatum should have talked to White people who make assumptions about people's race (so really anyone in America) and asked if they believe what their biracial peers tell them. This is like talking to someone of the LGBTQ+ community in terms of people needing to respect how others identify (this does not apply to the conversation about Rachel Dolezal as I don't think that is in the same category). Back to my main point, I think this was a great way to begin the end of this book. Talking about ways biracial people identify is a nice even ground where the Black and White communities can come together, via people who share both backgrounds.
In the end, I know race is a hard thing to talk, read, and write about, even for someone like Tatum who has their PhD and I respect the effort Tatum made in writing this book.
