The Truth About Identity Politics - It Discriminates Against The Multi-Racial
Let me start by saying that this is an issue close to my heart for many reasons. One was watching my grandmother struggle with the systems in place to reclaim her identity.
As far as I know, my history and heritage, as passed down to me, are this: I am solidly multi-racial. From my father’s side, I boast Scottish and Pennsylvania Dutch roots. From my mother’s side, I bear two tribes, full-blooded each, as far as I’m aware—but “legally” on neither side. Let me restate that: I am “legally” disassociated from my own heritage. That’s right, I don’t pass the ethnic purity test of “Blood Quantum” according to documentation.
My Family's History Is Complicated
My grandmother was adopted out of her tribe without all the paperwork filled out, in a way that means she can’t verify her parentage. Her tribe, the Cherokee, gave her a token recognition of “1/32,” the lowest legal “Quantum” that would let her claim tribal rights, but in a way that denies all her children the recognition of claiming Cherokee as their heritage. My grandfather, damn him, “gave up” his rights in a racist fit, preferring to call himself “Black Irish” because to him, both the “Blacks” and the “Irish” got more respect than an “Indian.” On his side, I’m a Yosemite Valley Native from the Miwok tribe.
Racism has cost me my heritage. Now, my identity includes these things, but I have a legal gatekeeper in the form of the United States Government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, which legally bars me from claiming tribal association. The only reason I can stake my identity claim at all is my right to free speech, which I now use to make this point:
The Most Marginalized Racial Group In The United States is Multi-Racial individuals
While I can point specifically to the BIA in my case—and many others—it isn’t limited to any specific race. All of them are marginalized. Let’s not forget the “One Drop Rule,” which classified any descendant of a Black ancestor as “Black” under the notion of “Invisible Blackness.” Look at how it played out in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case, where Homer Plessy—who was seven-eighths white and one-eighth Black—got arrested just for sitting in a whites-only train car, propping up the whole rotten Jim Crow system. These ideas of identity still carry weight, as I continue to see multi-racial individuals rejected by one or both sides of their ethnic peers. I've come across reports like that 2015 Pew Research Center study showing about one in five multiracial adults feeling pressure from friends or family to pick just one race, and around 40% facing discrimination over their mixed roots, whether at work or in everyday life.
This has carried into the present political climate, where marginalization rears its head in identity politics, affirmative action, civil rights, and social categorization. It stems from systemic erasure, forced assimilation, or forced association with monoracial groups, institutional biases, and specifically the modern “anti-white” bias that pressures them into downplaying or denying aspects of their holistic identity.
Many of these “Binary Race Laws” may seem like carry-overs from our less inclusive past, but the truth is that most emerged post-Civil War, starting with segregation laws. They reached their most insidious form in 20th-century censuses, where terms for tracking mixed heritage were ditched to simplify administration, focusing only on the most “dominant” traits and disqualifying those with “diluted heritages” from civil actions.
Even though the modern census encourages multiple-choice selections where appropriate, identity policy ideas had already shaped society. Those who don’t meet perceived “racial perceptions” are excluded from groups, or entire aspects of their identity are downplayed. Native Americans often hear, “Saying you’ve got Native in you means little—we all do to some extent,” highlighting how Native American identity was once co-opted by whites to seem more “exotic.”
This kind of “one-upmanship” has desensitized society to multi-racial identities, especially in a climate where such identifications could imply claims for personal gain. This brings me to affirmative action, which has systemically broadened the issue into an anti-white bias, where multi-racial individuals are inclined to ignore their “white” backgrounds for added benefits. Thus, it results in the erasure of a complete, collective identity. I've seen research indicating that multiracial folks facing roadblocks under affirmative action are about 20% more likely to claim only their minority side to snag opportunities, twisting their full heritage just to get ahead in college or job hunts.
This has removed their voices from discourse altogether as “irrelevant to the plight of (insert race),” distorting race relations—especially among multi-racial individuals—by prioritizing non-white elements. This undermines collective advocacy and interracial relations. It’s compounded by programs designed to address historical disadvantages, which reduce policy scope and systemically dilute efforts to distinguish multi-racial people from monoracial groups. This gives “legal” grounds to question the authenticity of individuals claiming “minority” status with any white heritage, even as they face the same racial biases that spawned such laws. It causes the downplay or legal repression of aspects to a systemic degree, leading to inconsistent application and reinforcing marginalization in education and employment.
This Is Not Merely A Mixed-White Problem
Democrats in particular point to the progress of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, claiming it protects against discrimination based on race. Yet multi-racial people encounter unaddressed biases, such as the “Skin Color Paradox,” where lighter- or darker-skinned individuals face intra-group prejudice rooted less in race and more in differences that create a clear “us-them” delineation. Take colorism in the Black community, for instance, where lighter-skinned folks often get the edge in hiring or media gigs, while darker-skinned ones deal with harsher stereotypes and discrimination—even from their own people—as studies reveal lighter-skinned Black women pulling in higher wages on average than their darker counterparts. And this crap isn't confined to America; it's a global plague. In India, it's tangled up with caste and colonial hangovers, where job ads push for lighter-skinned women in roles like receptionists or flight attendants, matrimonial sites sort by "fair" or "wheatish" complexions, and Bollywood mostly casts light-skinned stars while a $500 million skin-lightening industry thrives. In Brazil, those old colonial "whitening" policies pushed interracial marriages to lighten the population, leaving darker skin tied to higher poverty rates today, even though over half the folks are mixed-race or Black. Of course, in Rwanda, Belgian colonizers split Tutsis (often lighter-skinned) from Hutus (darker-skinned) with identity cards based on looks, stoking the fires that led to the 1994 genocide.
Multi-racial individuals consistently report higher rates of identity invalidation and exclusion. Civil rights litigation not only frames issues in monoracial terms but also underrepresents mixed-race stories, using anti-white bias for justification—even though this persists within non-white groups, like Hispanic-Asian or Indian-Black mixed-race individuals. This gap perpetuates systemic inequality, not because inequalities go unaddressed, but because the approaches lack tailored advocacy for holistic identities. Instead, they amplify racial tension rather than build unity under a truly American identity. In essence, while we admit America is a place of diversity, the idea of races mixing remains taboo in terms of policy.
What Then Is Systemic Racism, Really?
Again, as the one institution legally holding the interests of a particular race in the United States, the BIA codifies this racial bias through “Blood Quantum.” A civil rights body meant to protect rights instead gatekeeps ethnic purity with exclusionary practices. These standards mandate a minimum ancestry percentage, marginalizing multi-racial individuals by requiring a “proven pedigree” and nullifying tribal status based on “diluted” heritage. This perpetuates racial hierarchies, discriminating against “mixed-blood” individuals. Originally an anti-Native bias, it encouraged Natives to adopt an anti-white bias against their own children and families. This attempt at “equity” has only locked Native Americans in racist suspicion of outsiders, to the point of disowning their own. Just look at the Navajo Nation demanding at least 25% Navajo blood for enrollment, or the Cherokee Nation's system tied to old rolls without a hard quantum but still splitting families—where intermarriage "dilutes" the blood enough to deny some members healthcare or land rights, tearing apart generations.
In the end, it's time to tear down these outdated barriers and recognize multi-racial people for who we truly are—whole, complex humans shaped by every thread of our ancestry. We've been silenced and sidelined long enough by policies that divide rather than unite, pitting heritage against heritage in a zero-sum game of identity. Damn the gatekeepers who enforce purity over family; let's demand true equality where questions of skin color, ancestry, and ethnicity don't matter more than familial pride, history, and heritage—free from political or divisive ideas. Only then can we heal the wounds of racism and build a society where no one has to choose sides of themselves to belong.
Let Me Be Clear.
Let me clarify, I am not, in any form, asking for recognition of my personal heritage, or any right to legally claim it. Instead, I know my history and treasure it personally, and it is why such pain of rejection gives me offense enough to know what wrongs need to be corrected. Not because I am offended, but because I recognize the evil of divisive, hateful, and exclusionary policies based on immutable characteristics, by those with the same characteristics. I understand hypocrisy.
And so, I believe for a start that instead of excluding themselves, my people should join and help shape the future of this great country and those who live in it, instead of locking themselves away for long lost hurt they never experienced, and lots of anger that never should have been theirs to bear over history hundreds of years old. I love this country. And it is why I urge my countrymen to reject division. To stop looking at skin color as if it mattered, or separating ourselves based on places in which we no longer live. Instead, we should unite with our neighbors and embrace that identity which is ours to share.