Racial Reassignment

a person’s racial assignment is the race ascribed to a person by a person, people, or society. The race ascribed to a person may not be wholly (or at all) within their control and may or may not reflect their actual ancestry. Regardless, racial assignment can impact the a person’s civil rights, their social and educational opportunities, as well as the wage they earn, their healthcare, and their housing. Racial reassignment occurs when a person, people, or society decides to ascribe a new racial category to a person. In early America this sometimes happened because the individual changed where they lived or because their social status changed (for example in early Suriname, when parents’ married).