Desiree's Child Race

According to the most recent 2012 census report the number of biracial or mixed raced individuals in the United States has grew from 32 percent to 9 million ( Wile, Rob 2012). This number is steadily rising as society evolves and becomes more comfortable with the mixing of races. The coming together of two different races is a big accomplishment for the United States considering the fact that not so long ago communities of different races, particularly whites and blacks were segregated. With the mixing of races comes confusion. In Kate Chopin’s story “Desiree’s Baby” we see how important understanding an individual’s ethnicity is. The topic of race is also mentioned in Pat Mora’s poem “Legal Alien.” These two instances are only the tip of

Mixed race individuals have been a concern since the times of slavery. When Slave owners began intermingling with slaves the offspring of the two were not considered to be “Bi-Racial.” Children born from a slave and master were automatically labeled black because they had a darker complexion. Since the child often had a darker complexion, they were thought of to be inferior to whites. Bi-racial individuals eventually became known as “Mullato” (Jackson, Kelly 2015).The notion of black’s blood being dominant over whites helped classify bi-racial people as black although they were considered to be on a higher hierarchy than blacks (Brown,2001). Chopin’s story “Desiree’s Baby” takes place during the time of slavery. Near the end of the story discrimination plays itself out. Desiree’s husband acted coldly towards her when she mentioned to him the complexion of the child. In paragraph 26 Chopin says, “It is a lie, it is not true. I am white! Look at my hair, it is brown: and my eyes are gray. Armand, you know they are gray. And my skin is fair.” Desiree then goes on to say, “Look at my hand: whiter than yours, Armand.” The hate for another race really gets shown when Armand responds to his

There are countless stories from mixed children and adults who have encountered bullying. Mixed raced individuals get bullied for many different reasons. Most of the bullying comes from ignorance or jealousy. Biracial and Multi-racial individuals alike are sharing their stories one of the people is a woman named Nina. Nina created a BlogSpot dedicated to biracial people. One of the topics on her blog is bullying. Nina said, “Growing up my older sister would be called names such as Oreo, zebra and coon. People would comment about how she thought she was “all that” because she had “good hair”, while others assumed and asked if she wore weave in her hair. She also had to put up with bullying from our own mother and other sisters. Our mother, who is black, would instill hatred in our sisters who are not mixed by telling them that they would never amount to anything because they are not mixed and their dad is not white (Nina, 2014). Nina went on to say, “I also did not have many friends growing up, for the reason; that people assumed I was stuck up and thought I put myself on a higher pedestal than them just because of how I looked. I got called names like mutt, half-breed, and Oreo; I was even called an abomination which hit me kind of hard (Nina,