A light-skinned person’s racial identity can be chosen and changed by naming

Evidence

Birdie’s mother reminds her that she has “a lot of choices, babe. You can be anything, Puerto Rican, Sicilian, Pakistani, Greek. I mean anything really. And of course, you could always be Jewish” (p. 110). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2497

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how far does this ‘pick any ethnicity’ fluidity actually extend in real social contexts, versus being a fictional conceit?
• FICTION: The mother offering race as an à-la-carte menu is a vivid scene-builder for fiction about passing or mixed-race identity.
• XREF: connects to: Racial ascription can override a person’s own refusal of that identity — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 526; Mixed-race individuals are classified as black under the hypodescent rule — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 721