At the end of a Dr. Phil show recently, Dr. Phil said, "Choose your words carefully." He was talking about race. Dr. Phillip C. McGraw is a popular television talk show host who also has a few best selling books out. He has a doctorate in psychology and tries to give folks advice about their lives, which would lead you to believe he knows a lot about positive reinforcement and human behavior. Think again.

My daughter, Megan (president of Teen Project RACE), had noticed several weeks before on their Web site that the show was looking for parents of biracial children. She said, "Mom, let's write to them and try to get on the show!" I explained to her that they were most likely looking for biracial kids and adults with negative identity problems. She said, "Then we can at least show them some positive role models." Still doubtful, I agreed to send a letter to Dr. Phil and his producers. This is part of what we wrote:

Racial identity is a very personal matter. You and I do not have the right to tell anyone how to classify themselves. But it is vital that biracial children and adults have choice of embracing all of their heritage if that is what they choose. It's also important for biracial children and teens to know that all of their racial and ethnic parts make up wonderfully whole beings, who do have people fighting for their rights.

Dr. Phil, please do not make this show about "poor biracial children who don't know who they are." It's by and large a fallacy, and is perpetrated by the media. It's fodder for Maury and Jenny Jones, not for Dr. Phil. Spare us the "tragic mulatto" story and give our multiracial kids the truth.

We tried, but Dr. Phil somehow managed to find the most screwed up biracial woman he could find. She cried huge tears and said things like, "There is no place for me," "My father (who was black) hated white people and my mother (who was white) hated black people," "I don't know who or what I am!" and "It's always been about my appearance."

First, Dr. Phil assures this (gorgeous) woman that there is more to her than her appearance, but then goes on to tell her how attractive she is and tells his cameraperson to get a close up of her because he would give her an "A" in the looks department. Huh? He is reinforcing what seemed to bother her. Never mind that he didn't understand that she was talking about people being confused about her racial identity by just looking at her. She didn't think she was ugly at all. Some psychologists just don't get it.

The worst was yet to come. Dr. Phil's sage advice to this biracial woman was: "Pick a team and play for them; pick a black team or a white team." Saying, in effect, "You must choose to be black or white, you can't be both." There is another alternative: She can embrace all of her heritage and be both. She need not deny either of her parents. Wouldn't that be a mentally healthy thing to do? Some psychologists just don't get it.

I'm disappointed in Dr. Phil. Obviously, degrees and public success do not ensure intelligence and knowledge about everything under the sun, but public access comes with a certain amount of responsibility. Stereotyping biracial and multiracial people as confused, pathetic people with no identity, who must choose to be just one race, is wrong, no matter who does it. Dr Phil needs to get real.

Susan Graham
Executive Director

In part 1 I detailed the story of a biracial woman on Dr. Phil's show on race. Now let's look at the rest of the story.

Earlier in the show a mother of three white daughters had been on with her youngest daughter. The mother did not want her daughters to date outside of their race. Dr. Phil's producers selectively picked and aired a segment (twice, in fact) in which the mother called black people names that should never, ever, be said in public, let alone on television. As Dr. Phil would say, "What were they thinking?!"

Before going to a break, Dr. Phil said that the daughter would have a "secret" to reveal to her mother when they came back. Isn't that exactly what they do on the Maury Povich Show? Of course, the secret was that the daughter was dating a black man. As if no one could guess that.

Dr. Phil's positive mental health solution was for the mother to learn to express her concern for the "fact" that the daughter will be subjected to "pain, ridicule, harsh judgment, and challenges" all her life for dating black men. What decade is Dr. Phil living in? Why does he think it's positive to perpetuate negative attitudes about interracial couples? Attitude's like Dr. Phil's wrongly stereotype our families and should not be showcased on any public forum.

Another segment showed a white woman married to Benny, a Mexican man. The woman's uncle was against interracial marriages. Yeah, yeah, heard all of that before. What surprised us was that Dr. Phil kept referring to Mexican as a "race." It's not. It's an ethnicity. Kids know that by the time they are in middle school. Dr. Phil apparently doesn't know.

Race is a very personal and complex subject. Organizations are devoted to racial and ethnic ideas or equity (Project RACE, NAACP, MALDEF, etc.) Entire books are written about race. Universities build curriculum around race (although some of the professors who "teach" those courses are as unqualified as Dr. Phil). Wars and riots have been waged over skin color.

For the producers of a talk show to think that they are qualified to represent biracial people is the epitome of misdirected egotism. Dr. Phil and his staff are out of their league when it comes to knowledge of racial identity and the ability to dole out "strategies" for interracial families. It is unfair to our community when a talk show host portends to know what is best for us, and let's face it, Dr. Phil is a talk show host first and psychologist second.

I have a new Dr. Philism for Dr. Phil: If you go looking for bad news, you'll find it, but you'll serve your audience better with some positive balance. As for the audience in my home, I have a new ProjectRacism: We're gonna kick Dr. Phil to the curb.

Susan Graham
Executive Director