Many new people I meet ask both what race I am and what I call myself. When I asked my mother what I should call myself, she said “You’re biracial.” My mother fought for this on behalf of my younger brother and me in 1990, the final census that failed to allow people to identify with more than one racial group. When the census taker rejected our status as mixed-race children, she first suggested they go after the race of my mother. My mother wouldn’t have any of it, as neither one of us can be truly considered “white.” The taker then offered a compromise, proposing one of us be listed as “white” while the other could be called “black.” I’ve identified myself as black for years, only to wonder what being “black” really meant. If how I lived my life were directly attributable to my race, then watching “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and listening to Led Zeppelin could be considered “black.”
Black people aren’t more prone than others to eating fried chicken, just as whites aren’t more prone to listening to Garth Brooks — with a shout-out to “The Thunder Rolls.”  I’ve been called hateful, racist things by both white and black people. Ironically, racism knows no creed. (As a side note, there’s no such thing as “reverse racism.”  White people didn’t trademark   racism, though they may have provided the most blatant historical example.) When the landmark 1967 Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia overturned the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 — which defined a white person as having no trace of black blood and criminalizing marriages between whites and non-whites — people had trouble trying to eliminate the line separating distinctions that make relating to the world familiar. The “either-or” mentality eliminated by interracial marriages discomforted those used to having the world fit into preconceived notions about people — also known as stereotypes.In this respect, hopefully soon-to-be former Tangipahoa justice of the peace Keith Bardwell almost had a point, albeit while perpetuating a racist taboo. In denying a marriage license to an interracial couple, he claimed he was saving the couple’s potential children from hardships.
“I’ve had countless numbers of people that was born in that situation, and that they claim that the blacks or the whites didn’t accept the children,” Bardwell told “The Early Show” on CBS. “I didn’t want to put the children in that position.” I could defend Bardwell’s actions based on the unease of interacting with different groups. My personal case in point occurred when I watched the “N-word Guy” episode of South Park with seven white guys. I kept laughing my ass off while the others nervously and repeatedly glanced at me, subconsciously asking for permission to laugh at racial humor around a “black” man.
If not for stereotypes that admittedly help us associate with others — usually in a negative way — our group would have enjoyed a TV show together. Instead, the tension was palpable. But it isn’t up to a judge to use his emotions to subvert the law. The decision to have children and acclimate them to the world ultimately lies in the hands of the parents who, by law (unless you’re gay), have a right to marry and raise children regardless of race.  Judge Bardwell should resign his post and officially apologize to not only the couple (which, at the time of this writing, he still hasn’t done), but also his parish and our entire state for helping to shine the national spotlight on good old-fashioned Louisiana bigotry. The hardships presented to biracial children are only in the eyes of those looking to classify groups of people by how they look instead of the content of their character. When my mother rebelled against the traditional role of assigning an arbitrary value to her children, she didn’t do it to start a problem or to be insubordinate.
She did it because she knows what her children are. We’re both beautiful, café-au-lait-colored Americans.Eric Freeman Jr. is a 22-year-old political science senior from New Orleans. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_efreeman.–Contact Eric Freeman Jr. at [email protected]