When a child is born of a mixed union between a black and a white person, white

When a child is born of a mixed union between a black and a white person, white

When a child is born of a mixed union between a black and a white person, white people and the media tend to consider this child to be black. When this child becomes an adult, people will assume he or she is black until informed that there was a white parent as well. As a white person, this used to seem natural to me, since mixed children look more like black people than white people. As I get older and think about these things more, though, I wonder; does this really make any sense, or is this just a default assumption I've unconsciously acquired, with no actual physiological base? Do black people look at mixed children and think that these children are basically white, unless informed there is a black parent in the mix? Or is there some truth to the notion that racially mixed children lean more in appearance towards their non-white parent? (We seem to have the same assumptions concerning mixed white and Asian children, for example)

Read another response by Lee McBride
Read another response about Race
Print