Both comedians were featured on MAD TV, where they were the “go to” Black guys in a mainly white sketch show. I’ll admit I was not a fan of MAD TV and was not even aware of them until their new show.

The show is hilarious and follows in the steps of “The Dave Chappelle Show,” Eddie Murphy’s work on “Saturday Night Live” and “In Living Color” to create a show that provides a satirical take on race, pop culture and politics. The show is also smart and quirky and artistically shot which draws comparisons to the IFC hipster parodying comedy show “Portlandia”

In their first show, they parody misogyny, Black masculinity, Barack Obama, Lil Wayne and Thomas Jefferson. They also use some self deprecating humor about their biracial heritage.

While many people may not be familiar with Key and Peele, their show is long overdue. Both comedians have a long history of improvisational comedy and writing.

Keegan-Michael Key was part of the world famous Chicago Second City improv troupe and has made several guest appearances on the hilarious “Reno 911” show which utilized improv.

Jordan Peele also has an extensive background in comedy, Like Keegan, he appeared on the hilarious improv based comedy “Reno 911.” Peele has shown his comedic versatility by appearing on the Cartoon Network’s twisted Adult Swim show, “Children’s Hospital” as well as the wholesome “America’s Funniest Animals” on Animal Planet.

Peele claims that their show is “edgier, smarter and on a whole different level than MAD TV.” By taking full creative control of the show the duo show a perspective on race and culture that has not been seen in sketch shows on TV.

While the duo is biracial, the show is still a Black show that carries the torch from “In Living Color” and the “Chappelle Show.” Like the “Chappelle Show” the skits are like mini movies, well shot intelligently written and thought provoking as well as funny.

Peele, who was asked to join Saturday night live due to his spot on Obama impression, has the best Obama impression on TV.

The biracial perspective adds to their hilarious incite on race and culture. Previously biracial comedians like Maya Rudolph have been forced to play characters that either Black or white.Rashido Jones who has acted in the hilarious comedies, “The Office” and “Parks And Recreation” never has her race mentioned on either show, let alone her biracial heritage.

In a time where the biracial population is growing at record rates, Key And Peele are able to use their heritage to place new viewpoints and ideologies in humor to create a great new satirical take on race, politics, Black culture and masculinity. “Key And Peele” premieres Tuesday, January 31st at 10:30pm.

Key And Peele Obama Parody

Key And Peele On The Phone

RELATED: Kendra Wilkinson’s great debut on Dancing with the Stars

The Washington Post reports:

“In Brazil, we have all kinds of culture, people, and our inner identity comes from black people,” said Melo, 47, a drug abuse counselor in City of God, a favela Obama is expected to visit on Sunday. “That’s why I think Obama is important for the world, because a poor guy suddenly becomes the most important man in the world.”

Obama’s story — the humble beginnings and the rise to prominence and power — is familiar here. And so is his race, which has struck a chord in a country with the world’s second-largest black population, after Nigeria.

“People identify with the self-made man, with his discourse, with his family,” said Silva, a former secretary of justice in Sao Paulo state. “All this generates hope and feeds the dream of black people in Brazil — that they, too, can access power.”

Read The Whole Story

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Hello Beautiful reports:

A recent study done by Allure Magazine states that Americans have changed their opinions of what is sexy from 20 years ago. The survey stated that 64% of people think that mixed race women represent the epitome of beauty, 70% of those surveyed want their skin color to be darker and 74% believe that a curvier body is more appealing than a skinner body. It’s interesting to see how the “opinion” of Americans on what is considered most beautiful has changed from 1991 till now. I personally believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however, to each his own!

Read The Whole Story

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Listen To NewsOne’s Casey Gane-McCalla Discuss Being Biracial On NPR

Biracials Still Subscribe To The “One Drop Rule”

They are also using the strength in their growing numbers to affirm roots that were once portrayed as tragic or pitiable.

“I think it’s really important to acknowledge who you are and everything that makes you that,” said Ms. Wood, the 19-year-old vice president of the group. “If someone tries to call me black I say, ‘yes — and white.’ People have the right not to acknowledge everything, but don’t do it because society tells you that you can’t.”

No one knows quite how the growth of the multiracial population will change the country. Optimists say the blending of the races is a step toward transcending race, to a place where America is free of bigotry, prejudice and programs like affirmative action.


VIDEO:

Pessimists say that a more powerful multiracial movement will lead to more stratification and come at the expense of the number and influence of other minority groups, particularly African-Americans.

Read more at NYtimes.com

Years after slavery and Jim Crow laws, people of African and European heritage still consider themselves to be Black, according to a recent study.

The centuries-old “one-drop rule” assigning minority status to mixed-race individuals appears to live on in our modern-day perception and categorization of people like Barack Obama, Tiger Woods, and Halle Berry.

So say Harvard University psychologists, who’ve found that we still tend to see biracials not as equal members of both parent groups, but as belonging more to their minority parent group. Their research appears in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

“Many commentators have argued that the election of Barack Obama, and the increasing number of mixed-race people more broadly, will lead to a fundamental change in American race relations,” says lead author Arnold K. Ho, a Ph.D. student in psychology at Harvard. “Our work challenges the interpretation of our first biracial president, and the growing number of mixed-race people in general, as signaling a color-blind America.

Read The Whole Story

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Center Joakim Noah

Noah is not only biracial but bi-cultural as well. He is the son of African French tennis player, Yannick Noah and Swedish model, Cecilia Rodhe. He was born in France but learned to play basketball at an elite private school in New York and the playgrounds of Harlem.

Power Forward Blake Griffin

Griffin is born to Black father and white mother in Oaklahoma, where he played high school and college ball. He was drafted with the number one pick in the 2009 draft. After sitting out his first season, he has started the 2010 season with a lot promise.

Small Forward Shane Battier

Shane Battier was born to a Black father and white mother in Birmingham, Michigan. As a child he was treated as Black by the white kids at his private school and as white by the Black kids on his AAU team. Battier would win an NCAA championship with Duke and become on of the NBA’s premier defensive players.

Shooting Guard Tony Parker

Tony Parker was born to a Black, American father who played professional Basketball and a white french mother was a model. Tony Parker already has three championships with the San Antonio Spurs and averaged 28.6 points a game during the 2009 playoffs.

Point Guard Deron Williams

Deron Williams is on of the five best point guards in the league. He played college ball at Illinois and has a stellar career in with the Utah Jazz, averaging 10 assists a game for the past three seasons.

From TheRoot.com:

I’m the son of a black father and a white mother. As a child coming up in the 1980s and ’90s, I immersed myself in hip-hop style and culture, excelled at sports, rocked aerodynamic hairstyles, and spoke in the same florid body language that the older brothers at the local black barbershop were fluent in.

I played basketball fiendishly, and on the asphalt, other black players addressed me without thinking as nigga. Once or twice, some white person referred to me (also without thinking) as a nigger. I was black back then, period.

As I’ve gotten older, however, my clothes have started to fit slimmer and my interests have widened. And I can’t help but notice that I’ve become less black to others.

Click here to read more.

RELATED:

Census Form Forces Choice Between Black & Biracial

Being Biracial & Black In The Age Of Obama

Click here to view photos:

WASHINGTON – Melting pot or racial divide? The growth of interracialmarriages is slowing among U.S.-born Hispanics and Asians. Still, blacks are substantially more likely than before to marry whites.

The number of interracial marriages in the U.S. has risen 20 percent since 2000 to about 4.5 million, according to the latest census figures. While still growing, that number is a marked drop-off from the 65 percent increase between 1990 and 2000.

About 8 percent of U.S. marriages are mixed-race, up from 7 percent in 2000.

The latest trend belies notions of the U.S. as a post-racial, assimilated society. Demographers cite a steady flow of recent immigration that has given Hispanics and Asians more ethnically similar partners to choose from while creating some social distance from whites due to cultural and language differences.

RELATED: Judge Who Refused To Marry Interracial Couple Resigns

White wariness toward a rapidly growing U.S. minority population also may be contributing to racial divisions, experts said.

“Racial boundaries are not going to disappear anytime soon,” said Daniel Lichter, a professor of sociology and public policy at Cornell University. He noted the increase in anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks as well as current tensions in Arizona over its new immigration law.

Click here to view photos:

“With a white backlash toward immigrant groups, some immigrants are more likely to turn inward to each other for support,” Lichter said.

Broken down by race, about 40 percent of U.S.-born Asians now marry whites — a figure unchanged since 1980. Their likelihood of marrying foreign-born Asians, meanwhile, multiplied 3 times for men and 5 times for women, to roughly 20 percent.

Among U.S.-born Hispanics, marriages with whites increased modestly from roughly 30 percent to 38 percent over the past three decades. But when it came to marriages with foreign-born Hispanics, the share doubled — to 12.5 percent for men, and 17.1 percent for women.

In contrast, blacks are now three times as likely to marry whites than in 1980. About 14.4 percent of blackmen and 6.5 percent of black women are currently in such mixed marriages, due to higher educational attainment, a more racially integrated military and a rising black middle class that provides more interaction with other races.

RELATED: Interracial Couple Murder Is A Hate Crime

The numbers reflect in part an internal struggle that Asians and Hispanics say they feel navigating two cultural worlds — the U.S. and their parents’ homeland.

Hai Nguyen, 37, of Houston recalls the instant connection she felt after meeting her first Vietnamese boyfriend, Greg, in college. Nguyen says while she had to explain herself to white boyfriends, with Greg it was a feeling that “he so gets me, because we eat the same food, we like the same things, our families know each other and there is so little that needs to be said.”

With the enthusiastic support of her parents, she and Greg married. But their connection soon began to fade, due partly to Nguyen’s budding career as a business analyst, which clashed with more traditional expectations for her to “always have fresh food on the table.” The two divorced and Nguyen is now remarried to Jon, who is white.

“My parents have prejudices, but they’ve accepted it,” said Nguyen. She described occasionally feeling different with her parents and other single-race couples. “They know it’s inevitable. My native tongue will eventually fade, and history will take its course.”

The demographic shifts can complicate conventional notions of racial identity.

Due to increasing interracial marriages, multiracial Americans are a small but fast-growing demographic group, making up about 5 percent of the minority population. Together with blacks, Hispanics and Asians, theCensus Bureau estimates they collectively will represent a majority of the U.S. population by mid-century.

Still, many multiracial people — particularly those who are part black — shun a “multi” label in favor of identifying as a single race.

By some estimates, two-thirds of those who checked the single box of “black” on the census form are actually mixed, including President Barack Obama, who identified himself as black in the 2010 census even though his mother was white.

RELATED: VIDEO: Couple Says There’d Be No Obama If Not For Interracial Marriage

Census figures also show:

_Hawaii had the highest share of mixed marriages, about 32 percent. It was followed by Alaska, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Nevada, which ranged from 15 percent to 19 percent. The bottom five states were Pennsylvania, Maine, Kentucky, Mississippi and West Virginia, each ranging from 3 percent to 4 percent.

_Mississippi had the fastest growth in mixed marriages from 2000-08, a sign of closer ties between blacksand whites, though it still ranked second to last in overall share of mixed marriages.

_Mixed marriages jumped from 2.25 million to 3.7 million, or 65 percent, from 1990-2000, as such unions became more broadly accepted in Southern states.

_Among U.S.-born whites, about 0.3 percent married blacks in 1980; that figure rose to about 1 percent in 2008. About 0.3 percent of whites married Asians in 1980 and about 1 percent in 2008. About 2 percent of whites married Hispanics in 1980, rising to about 3.6 percent in 2008.

Juan Thurman, 37, a Houston sales account manager, says both family pressure and a strong ethnic identity weighed heavily on him as a Hispanic when he was dating, even as he found himself interacting more with other races in school.

In high school and at Rice University, Thurman said, he had fewer opportunities to meet Hispanic women in his honors classes. Ultimately, he married Emily, who is white, based on shared life views of gender equityand a liberal outlook toward religion. He relishes having friends of many different backgrounds.

“Interracial marriage is not a big deal,” Thurman said. “Still, from a family standpoint, I did feel culturally different and I continue to feel so.”

The figures come from previous censuses as well as the 2008 American Community Survey, which surveys 3 million households. The figures for “white” refer to those whites who are not of Hispanic ethnicity. For purposes of defining interracial marriages, Hispanic is counted as a race.

In a recent interview with Women’s Health magazine, actress Paula Patton spoke about her mixed background and her identity, She told them:

I find (the term) biracial offensive, it’s a way for people to separate themselves from African-Americans, a way of saying I’m better than that. I’m Black because that’s the way the worlds sees me. People aren’t calling Obama biracial. Most people think there’s a Black president.

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Census Forms Give Multiracial Americans More Options

Here is the trailer for the movie “Bi-Racial… Not Black Damn It”

Being Biracial and Black in the Age of Obama

Multiracial Americans Are Fastest Growing Group

A recent report from the New York Times reveals a dark side about former President, Richard Nixon’s view on abortion especially concerning biracial children.

Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases, such as interracial pregnancies.

“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding: “Or a rape.”

This means that Nixon would’ve believed it was necessary for Obama’s mother to have an abortion because he was the product of a black and a white.

Forty-two years ago, the landmark Supreme Court decision of Loving vs. Virginia outlawed the anti-miscegenation statute in the state of Virginia and, subsquently, across the nation. The story started with a couple in love: Mildred Jeter, black, and Richard Loving, white, who decided to marry in D.C., where the racist laws preventing their union did not hold up. After being harassed by law enforcement officials about their “illegal” marriage, the two filed lawsuit after lawsuit until it finally reached the doorstep of the United States Supreme Court.

There, the 9 justices voted unanimously in their favor, abolishing the old laws preventing interracial couples from marrying. This monumental decision made it possible for millions of interracial couples to marry and build loving homes for some of the most outstanding individuals in our nation’s history, including our president, Barack Obama!

In honor of this monumental victory and this positive step in the direction of a multicultural global society, lovingday.org has created a a holiday which, incidentally, is today. Are you celebrating?

How has multiculturalism touched your life? Are you bi-racial or multi-racial? Tell us about your experience here!

WATCH Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” Speech here:

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Multiracial Americans have become the fastest growing demographic group, wielding an impact on minority growth that challenges traditional notions of race.

The number of multiracial people rose 3.4 percent last year to about 5.2 million, according to the latest census estimates. First given the option in 2000, Americans who check more than one box for race on census surveys have jumped by 33 percent and now make up 5 percent of the minority population — with millions more believed to be uncounted.

Demographers attributed the recent population growth to more social acceptance and slowing immigration. They cited in particular the high public profiles of Tiger Woods and President Barack Obama, a self-described “mutt,” who are having an effect on those who might self-identify as multiracial.

Population figures as of July 2008 show that California, Texas, New York and Florida had the most multiracial people, due partly to higher numbers of second- and later-generation immigrants who are more likely to “marry out.” Measured by percentages, Hawaii ranked first with nearly 1 in 5 residents who were multiracial, followed by Alaska and Oklahoma, both at roughly 4 percent.

Utah had the highest growth rate of multiracial people in 2008 compared to the previous year, a reflection of loosening social morals in a mostly white state.

“Multiracial unions have been happening for a very long time, but we are only now really coming to terms with saying it’s OK,” said Carolyn Liebler, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota who specializes in family, race and ethnicity.

“I don’t think we’ve nearly tapped the potential. Millions are yet to come out,” she said.

In Middletown, N.J., Kayci Baldwin, 17, said she remembers how her black father and white mother often worried whether she would fit in with the other kids. While she at first struggled with her identity, Baldwin now actively embraces it, sponsoring support groups and a nationwide multiracial teen club of 1,000 that includes both Democrats and Republicans.

“I went to my high school prom last week with my date who is Ecuadoran-Nigerian, a friend who is Chinese-white and another friend who is part Dominican,” she said. “While we are a group that was previously ignored in many ways, we now have an opportunity to fully identify and express ourselves.”

The latest demographic change comes amid a debate on the role of race in America, complicating conventional notions of minority rights.

Under new federal rules, many K-12 schools next year will allow students for the first time to indicate if they are “two or more races.” The move is expected to cause shifts in how test scores are categorized, potentially altering race disparities and funding for education programs.

Five justices of the Supreme Court have signaled they would like to end racial preferences in voting rights and employment cases — a majority that may not change even if Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed as the first Hispanic justice. Blacks and Hispanics, meanwhile, are touting a growing minority population and past discrimination in pushing for continued legal protections.

Left out of the discussion are multiracial people, who are counted as minorities but can be hard to define politically and socioeconomically. Demographers say that while some multiracial Americans may feel burdened or isolated by their identity, others quickly learn to navigate it and can flourish from their access to more racial networks.

“The significance of race as we know it in today’s legal and government categories will be obsolete in less than 20 years,” said William H. Frey, a demographer at Brookings Institution.

“The rise of mixed-race voters will dilute the racial identity politics that have become prevalent in past elections,” he said.

Liebler noted a potential dilemma where a white student who is one-eighth Cherokee applies to college and seeks an admissions preference based on race and disadvantaged status. Should the college give the multiracial student the boost, if one-eighth of his family suffered a past racial harm but seven-eighths of his family were the perpetrators?

“It’s a huge question for our legal system and our policies,” she said. “Tomorrow we could have a legal case that challenges whether a multiracial person is a minority.”

Census data also show:

_More than half of the multiracial population was younger than 20 years old, a reflection of declining social stigma as interracial marriages became less taboo.

_Interracial marriages increased threefold to 4.3 million since 2000, when Alabama became the last state to lift its unenforceable ban on interracial marriages. (The Supreme Court barred race-based restrictions on marriage in 1967.) About 1 in 13 marriages are mixed race, with the most prevalent being white-Hispanic, white-American Indian and white-Asian.

_Due to declining immigration because of legal restrictions and the lackluster economy, the growth rates of the Hispanic and Asian populations slowed last year to 3.2 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively, compared to multiracial people’s 3.4 percent. The black population rose at a rate of about 1 percent; the white population only marginally increased.

Currently, census forms allow U.S. residents to check more than one box for their race. But there is no multiracial category, and survey responses can vary widely depending on whether a person considers Hispanic a race or ethnicity.

“It’s all about awareness,” said Susan Graham, founder and executive director of California-based Project Race, which advocates for a multiracial classification on government forms. “We want a part of the pie chart.”

The 2008 census estimates used local records of births and deaths and tax records of people moving within the U.S. The figures for “white” refer to those whites who are not of Hispanic ethnicity. For purposes of defining interracial marriages, Hispanic is counted as a race.

Cross

My old man’s a white old man
And my old mother’s black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,
I’m sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well
My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder were I’m going to die,
Being neither white nor black?

Langston Hughes

Growing up mixed is hard in America. There are no dolls, not too many heroes and no box to explain your identity on applications. As a child I was was called a zebra, half breed and a mutt. There are many stereotypes about being biracial, confused, mixed up the tragic mulatto. From a young child I was always forced to explain my ethnic make up. Are you Puerto Rican, Arab? What are you?

The term mulatto comes from the word mule. A mule is an ass, an animal bred from two separate species, a horse and a donkey, that cannot reproduce. Most biracials consider it an offensive term yet it is still freely used.

My father was a Jamaican Immigrant who came to the US to study at MIT. My mother was a refugee from South Africa who came to MIT to study after she was deported for conspiring against the apartheid regime. Growing up it was hard to find a group to identify with. I was proud of my diverse heritage yet insecure about where I fit into society.

America’s color coded racial identity system makes it hard for people of mixed race to choose a group to identify with. America is not like South Africa where people of mixed race were deemed colored and given separate social status under the law.

For years, biracials have been viewed as the bastard children of America, rejected by their white parents and  accepted by black society. Biracials have always had a place in African American society while being cast from white society in the states. The same laws of slavery and Jim Crow applied to biracials as well as blacks. That is not to say that biracials were not given preferential treatment but they had the same status under the law.

It wasn’t until I read Barack Obama’s book, Dreams From My Father, in 2004, that I really thought about my identity as a both a biracial and as an African American. His tale of struggle for identity paralleled mine, embracing his white relatives and white heritage while clearly defining himself as a black man. As a book, Dreams From My Father was as influential as Malcolm X’s Autobiography in terms of determining my personal identity. No longer were my options of success becoming a successful rapper or comedian.

Barack Obama had taken his biracial identity and incorporated himself into the greater American identity and opened up the doors for biracials and blacks to determine their own place in society.

Obama’s journey for identity led for him to believe that despite the fact his father was a foreign born African and that he was raised mostly by his white mother and family, he considers himself African American. Still Obama is part white. Historically being white was exclusive. If you had one drop of black blood, you couldn’t be white. Being black has ben more inclusive, as the black community has accepted biracials immigrants and latinos into their greater struggle.

Top 10 Reasons Obama is Black

Being biracial is a gift and a curse. The curse is having to struggle with identity and placement in society. Barack Obama struggled with the curse of identity but showed how beautiful the gift of being able to relate and connect with people of all races in his historic campaign.

When Barack Obama was born it was illegal in 16 states for blacks to mary whites. Today the product of a relationship between a black man and a white is the President of the United States.

If we were to give biracials a separate category from African Americans, we would have to take several pages out of black history. Several politicians, artists and writers who contributed to the struggle for African American human rights and dignity were of mixed race. If we were to take biracials out of black history it would be a disservice to both biracials and blacks.

Mutts Like US: A Gallery of Famous Biracials

When Barack Obama called himself a mutt at his first Presidential press conference,  it was a self deprecating remark that reflected the new face of both biracials and America. The next time a mixed kid is called a mutt or half breed, he can say so is the President of the United States.

Barack Obama’s historic rise to the Presidency is a victory for biracials, a victory for African Americans and a victory for Americans as a whole. Although his experience are distinctly unique, there are parts of Barack Obama that every American can directly connect with. Our President is black, he is also part white, he is biracial, he’s an American. Get over it.

Many people have speculated about Egyptian Queen, Cleopatra’s background. She was famously portrayed by white actress, Elizabeth Taylor and is often pictured as a Greek or European woman. However, scientists have managed to recreate what her face would’ve looked like and she looks more like an African-American woman.

Read the Full Story in The UK Daily Mail Here

Being of mixed race when one parent is black and the other is white can be complicated to categorize. Because of the old “one-drop” rule, most Euro-African biracials have been categorized as Black. I agree with this generalization somewhat but it does not tell the whole story. I believe that being biracial is a category within being black or African-American. Historically, biracials have been given the same legal treatment as blacks.

Biracials have always been part of the struggle for African-American freedom. Through the struggle against slavery, the Civil Rights movement, and the global struggle for African rights.

That said, here’s a list of several Euro-African Americans who have contributed to the struggle for freedom, rights, and acceptance of African-Americans.

It’s expected nearly 75 million Americans will identify with more than one
race by 2050. It’s a powerful new force that cannot be ignored.