Let's Stop Being Angry At Biracial People

Image by Floyd B. Bariscale via Flickr

By: John McWhorter

He was really funny. I seem to recall that he was especially good at climbing things. He had a thing about The Six Million Dollar Man, as many 8-year-old boys did in the mid-1970s. He was also what was then called hyperactive, come to think of it.

But in terms of how we were to process my schoolmate, whom I'll call Troy, the most important and interesting thing was supposed to be that he was -- oh, dear -- mixed.

The "mixed" kid -- usually with a white mother and black father -- was thought of as a bit of a "situation" back then. The idea was that when he was around 12, he was going to have to realize that he was "really" black. CONTINUE....