Letter to:

Richard Foard
President
Interracial Family Alliance-Atlanta
P.O. Box 450473
Atlanta, GA 31145

Dear Mr. Foard:

I read with interest your "Notes and Commentary" column in the April/May 1999 issue of the IFA newsletter. I apologize for taking so long to write to you about your commentary, but I have been getting settled in my new home.

You wrote the following in your conclusion:

"...It seems to me that this (the bridging plan, which retrofits multiracial people back into one single racial category) is a subtler question than the Project RACE report makes it out to be. Perhaps "check one or more" even if it comes with some peculiar transitional baggage, should be regarded as an early, positive step in a journey to more universal embrace of multiracial identity."

I am quite honestly, shocked that anyone in the multiracial community would feel that way. You are the only person I know who even hints of approval of it. You refer to the "peculiar transitional baggage." Baggage? More like a huge civil wrong against the multiracial community. Perhaps you need to go back and read the ramifications in the Project RACE summary and how the counting method will cement the one-drop rule in this country. It would not be a positive step forward at all, but a giant step back.

Project RACE is an educational organization. Perhaps our attempt to educate people about the current situation in our response to "Draft Provisional Guidance on the Implementation of the 1997 Standards for Collecting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity" was not as clear as we thought. Our response has been overwhelmingly positive, and we have even heard from some bureaucrats who have told us that our response was "right on the money." However, if we have failed to explain the ramifications of the government counting scheme to even one person, we have still failed and I apologize for this and will take steps to improve our communications.

You go on to say "On the other hand, consider what some of these poor bureaucrats are up against..." What? What about the multiracial people of America who have been forced for years and years to claim only one heritage? What about the hate crimes and discrimination against interracial families and multiracial people? You must understand that for one thing, our multiracial children can never prove any type of discrimination if their numbers cannot be tracked. If, for example, a child is discriminated against in a school (yes, it does happen frequently), that injustice can never be righted because there is no count of multiracial children; they only exist as monoracial children in the system and if they don't exist, there can be no discrimination against them.

There is a an old saying: What is right is often forgotten by what is convenient. The Office of Management and Budget and the US Bureau of the Census wish to take the convenient road and turn multiracial numbers back into monoracial numbers. Yes, it's convenient-and wrong. Do you think that any other racial or ethnic group would stand for the government redistributing their numbers? Why should we?

Mr. Foard, with all due respect, you have not been in this battle. Where were you when we spent three years at the Georgia legislature? I have a photo of the signing of our Georgia legislation by Governor Zell Miller. Out of 20 supporters, only one IFA member and her family were there, although the entire IFA was invited. Did you help us and the many other interracial organizations that helped in 9 other states? Where were you all of the times we went to Washington to testify? Where were you when we held bone marrow donor drives to save the lives of multiracial children?

The IFA members who received e-mail messages from Project RACE are on our mailing list, at their request. Project RACE has members in 42 states and in five countries. They are members by choice and they believe in a classification for multiracial Americans. The last thing we need is sabotage by our own community. We don't need second guessing by people who have remained on the sidelines. Too many people have worked too hard toward the goal of equal recognition for multiracial people to have our own community remain ignorant about this issue. Project RACE takes individual memberships. We do not want any individual or family to not have the opportunity for education about government matters. Please inform your members that if they do not wish to receive future e-mails from Project RACE, they should contact us.

I am in total agreement with your advice to your members to read, think and write about this issue. I suggest that people not only read the 215 page draft, but also the 1993 Congressional hearings (296 pages) and the 1997 hearings (702 pages). Then read the web sites dedicated to the multiracial category. Follow that with books like The Multiracial Experience, American Mixed Race and about 50 others on the subject. Finally, peruse the hundreds of news articles about our work over the past ten years.

I can tell you from my past ten years in the movement for a multiracial classification that I am proud of all of the interracial families who have been and will always be a part of the quest for equal rights for multiracial children and adults.

Sincerely,

Susan Graham
President
Project RACE, Inc.