American: Multi-Cultural / Multi-Racial

By Wade H. Tavorn

Community Voices editorial Letter of the Year - 1997

One day while my son and I were riding to school listening to the Public Broadcast Station (PBS), a discussion about mixed marriages came up. My son, a child of a mixed marriage, listened carefully to every word spoken.

After the topic was over, he began to ask many questions that I was not prepared to answer. Lucky for me, we arrived at his school and the questions stopped. As I drove away from his school which is culturally mixed, I started to think about my racial make-up.

Although I am classified as Black or Afro-American, my grandmother has told me stories of the past that included American Indians and French. With all of these mixtures in my blood, who decided that I should be just one and offend the others? As I look at history, even Europeans are labeled: Polish, Italian, ..etc. But when you come to America, the skin game becomes very prevalent. Who started this interesting concept of conflict?

Surely it wasn't the French, Polish, Italian, or the African for they have been labeled for the last 500 years. So who can we put this blame on? Well, before I could answer that question I had to find out what people were called before the skin game came along. It appears that we called people barbarians, and we hated them if they had a belief system that was different from our own, and who couldn't speak our language.

I thought about the topic all day at school. I would look at my students and try to identify their background without looking at the color of their skin. The task was very hard. Was I indoctrinated? Slowly, I sat back in my chair as my students worked and closed my eyes. Without sight, they all became just students with concerns that all adolescents have. With these new thoughts in mind, I was ready to deal with my seven year old when I picked him up after school.

As I drove up to his school, I could see the gleam in his eye as he walked toward my vehicle. It was no surprise that he wanted to continue his conversation from this morning. I proceeded to tell him that even though both of his parents backgrounds were different, we still loved him very much.

"I know that," he replied, "I just want to know what race I am."

I thought for a second and answered, "You are multi-racial, multi-cultural, an American: part American Indian, French, European, and African. Maybe you are part of half of the races on the planet."

You could see this gleam reappear in his eyes as he spoke, "Really!"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, according to the program we listened too this morning, there is a big push to find out how many people in the United States are multi-racial," I said.

Then my son changed the conversation totally when he asked, "Dad, is Tiger Woods black?"

"No," I answered, "He is part American Indian, Afro-American, and Asian. He's an American just like you. In some ways, you and Tiger Woods are alike, both of your parents are from different racial backgrounds."

"Dad, do you think I'll be able to help breakdown barriers where people hate each other because of the color of their skin?" he asked.

"I hope so son," I replied, "You have a good mind, strong body, and a powerful spirit."

"Dad, do you think I can play professional soccer one day?" he asked.

"Yes, especially if you work as hard as Tiger Woods," I replied. "You must remember that Tiger Woods started playing golf very young. He worked hard to be the best! Nobody gave him nothing."

My son sat quietly and then he responded, "Maybe I should be a swimmer and go to the Olympics since I have been swimming since I was eighteen months old. I could be the fastest multi-racial swimmer in the world."

With a smile on my face, I simply said, "Yes son, you can be anything you want to be if you just believe and give it your all."

As we continued to drive home, I hoped that one day Americans would truly start to judge people by the content of their character and not by one's language, beliefs, or the color of their skin.