Times on Race

Fascinating article in the New York Times about the large number of multiracial college students these days: “Black? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose All of the Above“.

Did you know that in the United States right now one in seven new marriages is between spouses of different races or ethnicities?

Key quote:

Many young adults of mixed backgrounds are rejecting the color lines that have defined Americans for generations in favor of a much more fluid sense of identity. Ask Michelle López-Mullins, a 20-year-old junior and the president of the Multiracial and Biracial Student Association, how she marks her race on forms like the census, and she says, “It depends on the day, and it depends on the options.”

Maybe this is hitting me more strongly because I’m half-way through The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America by Nicholas Lemann for a class at USM. It’s a terribly interesting book that I think every college student should have to read. I want to talk more about it here soon, but for now, just go read the Times article.