But people are also denied the half portion of their identity all the time. Personally I don’t think D&D races key to real world race (it obviously means race if beings like you might have in science fiction). But if we are going to discuss the whole half thing, there is definitely a much more nuanced conversation to be had there. Yes racists can use someone’s mixed background as an attack. That’s because racists don’t see past skin color and attribute all kinds of characteristics to a person based on their racial, ethnic and even religious background. There is nothing wrong with being half one race or ethnicity and half another. And in my opinion, ceding the ground that the term half is itself a problem, opens that door in a bad way and can even lead down the very dark road of seeing things like interracial relationships, inter cultural relationships as something bad. Everyone is different when it comes to how they conceptualize and experience their background, but I know plenty of people who are either proud of the “half” label or who at least see it as an important part of who they are
Now you can do that, use that term, but also understand a lot of other things, like it’s a label that a person with bad intentions could misuse or use to force an identity in someone that doesn’t fit their sense of self (perhaps they are half this itchakf that, but to them what matters is what side raised them or what culture they grew up in).
