Biracial Identities

Many people identify strongly with the ethnic or racial group to which they belong – as Jews, or African-Americans, or Latinos.  But to which groups does a person truly belong?  President Obama has a white mother from Kansas and an African father from Kenya.  Why is he seen as our first African-American President, rather than our forty-fourth white president?  How does racial identity work?  Is such identification a positive or a negative factor in a person’s life?  Must we choose among our potential identities?  Ken and John discuss racial and bi-racial identity with Michele Elam from Stanford University, author of Mixed Race in the New Millennium.