Barack Obama can call himself black, white magenta, green, or whatever he wants, it really does not matter socially. However, genes are genes and his genes are multiracial. Barack Obama has a white mother and a black father, and to categorize him as only one race medically is just wrong, inaccurate, and likely to cost multiracial people their lives. The Obama Racial Identity Factor (ORIF), which has occurred since this biracial man self-identifies as black, overwhelms America.

If you are a multiracial person, don't you wonder about how your health risks are determined? If medical doctors assume you have two white parents, do they automatically rule out testing for something like sickle cell anemia? If you are the parent of a multiracial child, do you wonder - If you are the only parent accompanying your child to an emergency room, for example - how they identify and assess your child racially and ethnically? Do they look at you and assume your child is only your race? Some medications and dosages are given based on race - do they have yours right? Does it bother you that so many dollars are spent on monoracial people's health needs, but not on multiracial people's health risks? Did it ever occur to you that if there is no such thing as race, and race is a "social construct," why medical agencies even bother to study racial factors an disparities at all?

The good news is that Obama had a physical last week and was declared healthy by his doctor. The bad news comes in when you look at his risks: his smoking habit, his mother's ovarian cancer, and prostate cancer on his father's side. This is what the Associated Press reported from the the American Cancer Society:

Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society said that family history isn't strong enough to be of concern; doctors worry if a father or uncle had prostate cancer. But black men are at increased risk of prostate cancer overall..."

The American Cancer Society is basing their statistical data on black men. They do this because they have repeatedly refused to study multiracial people. My beef here is not with how Barack Obama self-identifies himself racially, but rather, how the American Cancer Society plays the eyeballing game by looking at someone and assigning them a race and medical risks based on their "look." They should know better.

The American Cancer Society is basing their statistical data on black men. They do this because they have repeatedly refused to study multiracial people. My beef here is not with how Barack Obama self-identifies himself racially, but rather, how the American Cancer Society plays the eyeballing game by looking at someone and assigning them a race and medical risks based on their "look." They should know better.

Who is Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society?

This guy is a heavyweight in the world of cancer. He is the Chief Medical Officer of the American Cancer Society. The following is right from his official bio:

Dr. Otis Brawley, a practicing oncologist, most recently served as professor of Hematology and Oncology and Epidemiology at Emory University, as medical director of the Georgia Cancer Center for Excellence at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, and as deputy director for cancer control at Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University. Previously, Dr. Brawley served in a variety of capacities at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), with his most recent NCI position as that of director of the Office of Special Populations Research. He is a renowned leader in the field of health disparities research. He led the National Cancer Institute Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial and also focuses his clinical research on breast cancer.

Dr. Bawley is a "renowned leader in the field of health disparities research." Hmmmm. He was also director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Office of Special Populations Research, which only studies the following populations:

• African American
• American Indian and Alaskan Native
• Asian Americans and Pacific Inlanders
• Hispanics/Latinos

Even though the NCI has statistical data from the 2000 Census, which allowed people to check more than one race, they do not utilize this information for health disparity. Even though they could study multiracial children and adults and access their health risks, they do not. Something is very wrong with this picture.

What We do Know

FACT: There is a total lack of information about health risks and trends in public health statistics for the multiracial population.

FACT: In the United States a person who is multiracial can be easily misclassified as one race at birth and another at death.

FACT: The non-inclusion of multiracial people in clinical trials by every pharmaceutical manufacturer in the U.S. puts multiracial people at risk for drug overdosing and under-dosing every day.

FACT: The United States Food and Drug Administration has not acted on the critical need for the inclusion of multiracial people in clinical trials.

FACT: There is a shortage of bone marrow donors for the multiracial population.

FACT: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the National Cancer Institute can tell us nothing about health risks or trends in public health statistics for multiracial children and adults, although they have studied every other racial and ethnic group.

FACT: The health care system in the United States has rendered the multiracial population "invisible."

FACT: We desperately need accurate classification for multiracial children and adults.

FACT: Multiracial people deserve an equal chance for medical care in this country.

Still, the media and some so-called activists for multiracial people continue to miss the point. They are far more interested in the "tragic mulatto" representation.

MSNBC had a series on recently about multiracial people, due to the apparent new Obama Racial Identity Factor interest generated by the presidential campaign. They said this: "Despite their growing numbers, multiracial Americans and their family members say society's response to them often remains a mixture of ignorance, judgment and downright rudeness." They had multiracial angst, they had biracial bliss, but they had nothing about health issues.

For example, they printed an interview with someone named "Gong," who is the self-proclaimed new voice of new multiracial Americans. This is a quote from him, as reported by MSNBC:

"Despite the positive feelings from the Obama candidacy and other strides, ambiguity and confusion over racial identity will persist for many mixed-race Americans, said Gong, a fact experienced even in families such as his own that have been multiracial for generations. The palette of cultural diversity has often been smudged by outside influences like "all these federal policies that were designed to deconstruct native identity," such as off-reservation boarding schools, the Indian Removal Act and urban relocation programs."

One of the interviews on the MSNBC Web site concentrates on a multiracial woman who was raised in a home with a black mother, white father, and a biracial brothel with, "white prostitutes conducting their business in the basement." Where do they find these families? This one was from Detroit. I am from Detroit, and I can tell you that a family with white prostitutes in the basement is not typical. I swear.

Can we get media, any federal health agency, anyone to focus on medical issues? Probably not, and trust me, we are dying to do so.

Susan Graham
Executive Director
Project RACE, Inc.