Generation Y On Race

By Kleinheider Posted on July 28, 2008 at 12:42 pm

They aren’t that colorblind:

Somebody needs to get the facts straight. I’m sorry to break it to Mr. Brokaw and to all others above my age bracket, but my peers and I are by no means colorblind.

What may be fueling this concept of the raceless Millennials is the extent to which we’re intermixing. There are more interracial couples, more biracial children and an expansion of the definitions of ethnicity, but all of that has done little to help us understand each other better. Los Angeles Times writer Rosa Brooks discussed the impact of race on my generation in her January 2008 piece, “Sex, Race and Gen Y Voters.” Brooks explains:

“[Younger] Americans just don’t think about race in the same simplistic ways [as Americans over 40]. They’re more likely than older Americans to be minorities themselves, for one thing. In 2006, only 19.8 percent of Americans over 60 were minorities, compared with about 40 percent of Americans under the age of 40. And younger minorities come from a far wider range of racial and ethnic backgrounds than their older counterparts.”

So, we’re mixing more than ever. That’s for sure. But diversity doesn’t necessarily equate to cultural understanding. Gen Y’ers often deal with race in an overt, in-your-face manner through jokes, stereotypical references and cultural tourism.

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Tags: colorblind, Generation Y, race