“The Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People”
by Dr. Maria P.P. Root
I have the right:
- not to justify my existence in this world
- not to keep the races separate within me
- not to be responsible for people’s discomfort with my physical ambiguity
- not to justify my ethnic legitimacy
I have the right:
- to identify myself differently than strangers expect me to identify
- to identify myself differently than how my parents identify me
- to identify myself differently than my brothers and sisters
- to identify myself different in different situations
I have the right:
- to create a vocabulary to communicate about being multiracial
- to change my identity over my lifetime – and more than once
- to have loyalties and identify with more than one group of people
- to freely choose whom I befriend and love