Famous Friday?

 

Today’s Famous Friday isn’t about a famous multiracial person. It’s about a politician who is against the multiracial population. I thought it would be a good time to write about an incident I had in Washington, DC in 1996. It was a precursor to Congressional Representatives behaving badly.

My 12-year-old son, Ryan, and I had testified about the multiracial classification before, and we were invited back to talk to the Reform and Oversight Committee on this occasion. There was a politician on the committee named Danny Davis, representing the 7th District of Illinois. Chicago. Davis is a Black man who is on every Black Caucus there that exists. My testimony went just fine. Representative Davis set his sights on my 12-year-old son from Georgia. When Ryan finished his testimony, Danny Davis laughed. He told Ryan that he’d be better off realizing he was really Black. He insinuated that my son was not biracial. He had a good old time making fun of a child who was asked to come to our nation’s capital to tell the truth, but the truth was battered around by this Black man from Chicago. I was very proud of my son who very kindly told Danny Davis, “I am multiracial, and I guess we just feel differently about this.”

When the hearing was adjourning, Davis would not let it go. He came up to Ryan and said, “Sure, son, and maybe you’ll be President one day,” and laughed again. I wonder what he thought when multiracial Barack Obama did become President one day.

Danny Davis is up for reelection. If you’re in his district, think about how you’re going to vote.

Susan Graham

President

Project RACE