Mixed Race Studies

Re-Visioning Wildfire: Historical Interpretations of the Life and Art of Edmonia Lewis

Southeastern Oklahoma University
Native American Symposium
2005-Proceedings of the Sixth Native American Symposium
pages 31-39

Julieanna Frost
Concordia University

As a feminist historian, one of my major goals is to reclaim the histories of women and to broadcast the diversity of the female experience. In many ways creating a multicultural curriculum is a form of political activism for me. Regarding inclusive history, I strongly agree with Gloria Joseph, who stated that learning history “will help to shatter the prevailing mythology that inhibits so many from acting more decisively for social change and to create a more just society and viable future for all.” My first brief introduction to Edmonia Lewis came in the article “Object Into Subject: Some Thoughts on the Work of Black Women Artists” by Michelle Cliff, which was included in the anthology Making Face, Making Soul: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color. This piece created a desire for me to learn more about the life and work of Wildfire Mary Edmonia Lewis (ca. 1843 – ca. 1911).

In art encyclopedias and critiques, Lewis is often noted as the first African American female sculptor. To be more accurate, her father was African American and her mother was Anishinabe. Orphaned as a child, she was raised among her mother’s people. The majority of her work was accomplished between 1866 and 1876. Her art has primarily been read as a representation of her Black heritage, ignoring her strong connection to her Native American heritage. In an attempt to rectify this oversight, this paper will examine how her Anishinabe ancestry influenced Lewis’s life and artwork, and explain why scholars tend to ignore this ancestry.

Much of Lewis’s early life and later life went unrecorded. It is believed that she was born near Albany, New York around 1843 and named Wildfire. Her father was a free Black and her mother was Anishinabe. Lewis also had a brother, Sunrise. It appears that Lewis spent most of her early years with the Anishinabe. In an interview, Lewis related,

Mother was a wild Indian and was born in Albany, of copper color and with straight black hair. There she made and sold moccasins. My father, who was a Negro, and a gentleman’s servant, saw her and married her … Mother often left home and wandered with her people, whose habits she could not forget, and thus we were brought up in the same wild manner. Until I was twelve years old, I led this wandering life, fishing and swimming … and making moccasins.

In 1849, Lewis’s mother died and her maternal aunts took her in and raised her. Lewis recalled, “when my mother was dying, she wanted me to promise that I would live three years with her people, and I did.”…

…One reason Lewis is viewed as an African American artist is based upon the social construction of race, as it existed during her lifetime. Dating back to the 17th century, laws that affected Africans and a small number of Native Americans were passed in the English colonies that made slavery an inheritable condition that passed from mother to child. To make the institutionalization of slavery complete, most English colonies outlawed intermarriage between whites and “colored” people by the 18th century. In addition, the legal system did not recognize marriages between “colored” people, although such common law arrangements existed from the colonial period when Blacks and Indians were utilized as indentured servants and later as slaves for life. Nash noted that, “institutions created by white Americans have disguised the degree of red-black intermixing by defining the children of mixed red-black ancestry as black and using the term mulatto in many cases to define half-African, half-Indian persons.” This typology served the economic interests of the ruling class, since classifying these people as Black typically bestowed slave status upon them. Additionally, this classification decreased the population of Native American nations because whites did not acknowledge Black Indians as belonging to the tribe. In contrast to the white practice of racial classification, most of the Native American nations granted full tribal membership to mixed race people if the mother was a member of the tribe. At the time of her birth the Anishinabe also accepted mixed-bloods into the tribe. Although Lewis had an Anishinabe mother and lived among this nation during her formative years, white society classified her as black…

Read the entire paper here.

The Identity Development of Multiracial Youth. ERIC/CUE Digest, Number 137

Education Resources Information Center (ERIC)
ERIC Identifier: ED425248
November 1998
9 pages

Wendy Schwartz

In the past several decades, individuals have been responding more actively to political and personal pressures to identify with a specific group that shares their background. For many people of mixed racial, ethnic, and cultural heritage, making such an identification is complicated. It is important for society to foster the positive development of these individuals, and it is even more important for educators and counselors to know how best to serve the special developmental and educational needs of multiracial students. A key factor in the lives of multiracial children is how they are labeled by themselves, their families, and society in general. A model of the identity development of multiracial children and youth has been proposed by W. Poston (1990). This model suggests that families may foster identity choices for their children that encompass “human,” “multiracial,” and “monoracial” options. At present, many of the important official tallies of individuals in the United States allow for only one racial or ethnic designation. However, in the year 2000, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget will allow individuals to identify themselves with as many racial designations as appropriate. By 2003, schools will also have to change the ways in which students report race, and this may affect the way in which multiracial students see themselves. Individuals who are socialized as multiracial usually benefit from their heritage, but there are disadvantages to being multiracial. One of the disadvantages is the complicated nature of the identity development process for multiracial youth. Another pressure on multiracial youth is societal racism in general and bias against interracial marriage in particular. Given the existence of the prejudices, it is likely that educators and counselors will also harbor some of these ideas, even unconsciously. It is important that educators and counselors consider their personal views carefully to ensure that they do not further complicate the development of the multiracial student’s identity. Learning about and respecting the beliefs, attitudes, and concerns of multiracial students is crucial for educators.

Read the entire paper here.

Black Indian With a Camera: The Work of Valena Broussard Dismukes

Southeastern Oklahoma University
Native American Symposium
2005-Proceedings of the Sixth Native American Symposium
pages 40-46

Sarita Cannon
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

In this paper, I examine the liberatory photography of a living African-Choctaw-French American artist, Valena Broussard Dismukes. I am especially fascinated by the way in which Dismukes takes the camera, an object that had previously been used as a weapon of oppression against Native Americans and people of African descent, and uses it to capture the spirit of twenty-first-century Black Indians on their own terms. In her series of portrait photographs entitled “Red-Black Connection: The Cultural Heritage of Black Native Americans,” Dismukes highlights the varied experience of Black Indians in the United States and forces her viewers to reevaluate their notions of what a “real” Indian and what a “real” Black person look like….

…The verbal narratives that accompany many of the portraits highlight many issues that contemporary Black Indians face, including the difficulty of tracing their lineage and the responses they receive from others about their authenticity or lack thereof. However, generally the narratives celebrate Black Indian Identity. A few of Dismukes’ subjects discuss how their own family members obscured their “true” ancestry. For instance, Elnora Tena Webb Mitchell (of Cherokee/Blackfeet descent) writes, “My grandparents and other members of my family were identified as Native American. However, there is much information about our ancestry that is kept secret. Being Native American is not revered nor honored by many family members.” It is interesting to note here that it is not the Black blood that is repressed, but rat her it is the Indian ancestry. It was not always advantageous to be identified as Black rather than Native. This choice depended upon historical and geographical context. Still others note how they are viewed as “wannabes” who are trying to distance themselves from Blackness. Gene “Quietwalker” Holmes of Comanche descent says, “There have been people from both communities who react to my heritage on a negative basis and ask, ‘Who or what are you trying to be?’” But Carol Munday Lawrence of Cherokee descent responds to these attacks simply by saying that she is merely discovering her multiple selves: “I fully understand why some fear that to claim Native American, or any other heritage, is to reject one’s Blackness, but this is not about ‘going Native.’ Knowing who your people are, and embracing them all unconditionally, can only enrich your life.” And Stella Vaugh playfully embraces this historical moment in which she can identify as a multiracial person: “In fact, I’m having fun boasting about my mixed-race. I jokingly say I’m 57 Heinz Variety. My mother’s mother is Cherokee and Irish. My father’s mother is Bohemian and his father is Choctaw. I am told that one of my ancestors is black and I’m still searching for that beautiful person.” Vaugh proudly embraces her multiple heritage and openly acknowledges the mystery that still surrounds her ancestry. She symbolizes the twenty-first century Black Indian who is coming out” after living much of her life in a space where she felt the need to repress parts of her identity. If Dismukes’ project can give at least one person the opportunity to feel a sense of dignity about who she is and introduce her to a community of people who also live at the crossroads of Native and African American cultures, then it is, without a doubt, a meaningful political and artistic endeavor…

Read the entire paper here.

Multiracial Identity Development

Arlington County Public Schools
Arlington County, Virginia
Clarendon Education Center
2011-11-30
28 pages/ 55 slides

Ms. Eleanor Lewis, M.A., CAGS, School Psychologist
Arlington Public Schools

Ms. Veronica Sanjines, M.A., CAG, School Psychologist
Arlington Public Schools

Dr. Ricia Weiner, Ph.D., School Psychologist
Arlington Public Schools

Special Education Parent Resource Center: Workshop Handouts

View the entire presentation here.

Racialisation in Brazil [Karina Round]

Mapping Global Racisms Project (2012- )
University of Leeds
Working Papers
10 pages

Karina Round

This paper is going to explore the processes of racialisation in Brazil, a country were race is supposed to be irrelevant. Racialisation is the dynamic and complex process through which racial categories, concepts and divisions become embedded into social practices. In 2001 the United Nations World Conference against Racism acknowledged that no country could claim to be free of racism and that racism is a worldwide concern and requires a global response. Brazil is a highly fascinating case study to investigate because of the racial divisions, categories and hierarchies that have become deeply rooted in society. Brazilians envisage themselves living in a truly anti-racist nation, a “racial democracy” and this has been embedded in their minds for decades, as a result many academics have strived to give visibility to racism in Brazil. Looking back to when I was a tourist Brazil in 2010, I witnessed the renowned Rio Carnival and what I saw was a country in celebration of its mixed cultural heritage, but little did I know the extent to which racism was fixed into Brazilian’ society. This essay is going to first give a general overview of the situation in Brazil, focusing on Brazil’s principal inequalities. It will then be spilt into four different themes. The first topic will look at the myth of racial democracy and how this has become embedded in Brazilian lives. The second topic will centre on the racial categorisations that exist in the Brazilian system. The third topic focuses on how racism and racial discrimination plays a huge part in educational inequalities and the black population’s exclusion from the labour market. Lastly, this essay will look at the indigenous population’s marginalised position within Brazil.

Read the entire paper here.

Of Mongrels and Men: The Shared Ideology of Anti-Miscegenation Law, Chinese Exclusion, and Contemporary American Neo-Nativism

bepress Legal Series
Working Paper 458
2005-02-16

Geoffrey A. Neri, Associate
Miller Barondess, LLP

Table of Contents

• I. INTRODUCTION
• II. BIRTH OF THE “ABOMINATION”: THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANTI-MISCEGENATION LAW
  • A. Origins and Early History
  • B. Anti-Miscegenation Ideology
    • 1. Monogenism and Christian Fundamentalism
    • 2. Polygenism and Pseudoscience
    • 3. Social Darwinism
    • 4. A Beacon of Light in the Dark Age of Racist Ideology
• III. THE “YELLOW PERIL”: ANTI-MISCEGENATION LAW AND CHINESE EXCLUSION
  • A. Chinese Migration to the United States in the 19th Century
    • 1. Pull Factors
    • 2. Push Factors
  • B. Anti-Chinese Immigration Legislation
  • C. The “Chinese Exclusion Case” and Plenary Power Doctrine
  • D. “Negroes or Mulattoes . . . and Mongolians”: The Anti-Miscegenation Expands to Include the Chinese
  • E. Effects of Anti-Miscegenation Law and Chinese Exclusion on Chinese Transnational Movement
• IV.MORE WHIMPER THAN BANG: THE END OF CHINESE EXCLUSION AND THE ANTI MISCEGENATION STATUTE
  • A. The End of Chinese Exclusion
  • B. The Demise of the Anti-Miscegenation Statute
    • 1. Early Challenges
    • 2. Loving
• V. THE CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE OF ANTI-MISCEGENATION LAW AND THE PERIOD OF CHINESE EXCLUSION
  • A. The Good News . . . More Progressive Racial Norms in the Modern Era
  • B. The Bad News . . . Neo-Nativism Serves up “Old Poison in New Bottles”
• VI.CONCLUSION

“We want no more mixture of races. . . . No strong nation was ever born of mongrel races of men.”
—U.S. Senator La Fayette Grover (addressing the “Chinese Problem”), June 30, 1872

I. INTRODUCTION

A complex interaction of push and pull factors created a substantial wave of Asian migration to the United States in the 19th century. In brief, acute political and economic instability and dislocation in China arising from European imperialism, internal conflict, and famine “pushed” Chinese laborers to the United States, while a demand for cheap, reliable labor brought on by burgeoning industrialization in the American West, the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, and the 1849 California gold strike at Sutter’s Creek “pulled” them. Due to America’s historic policy of open borders, this migration was virtually unrestricted and the rapid influx of Chinese immigrants into the American West almost immediately provoked “widespread concerns about the relationship between race and national identity” in the United States. The Chinese were perceived as possessing characteristics that amounted to unbridgeable racial differences and “fears of hybridity” proliferated, prompting one California legislator to warn that “were the Chinese to amalgamate at all with our people, it would be a hybrid of the most despicable, a mongrel of the most detestable that has ever afflicted the earth.

Anti-miscegenation laws, state laws prohibiting sex and/or marriage between individuals of different “races” originally crafted to prevent the mixing of whites and blacks, were quickly extended to regulate the interaction between whites and the Chinese, the new “other” race. In a process dubbed “Negroization” by historian Dan Caldwell, the Chinese were charged with the same negative racial qualities—“[h]eathen, morally inferior, savage, and childlike . . . lustful, sensual”—that had previously been hoisted on blacks and the rhetoric of anti-black racism became the rhetoric of anti-Chinese racism. This process of reassignment occurred a number of times as subsequent groups of Asian immigrants came to the United States and anti-miscegenation laws were extended further to apply to them: Japanese, Koreans, Indians, Filipinos and eventually all Asian immigrants were subject to the prohibition against commingling with whites.

This Article will examine the anti-miscegenation statute as well as other exclusionary laws specifically applied to the Chinese diaspora in America throughout the 19th and 20th century, describing the impact these racially restrictive laws had on Chinese transnational migration during the period. It will present the anti-miscegenation statute as an emblem of the broader concern of American nativism—a concern with defining and policing American political and civic culture, with protecting American republicanism from the perceived threat posed by foreigners deemed “unassimilable.” This Article will then situate the anti-miscegenation statute within the larger framework of the xenophobic ideology animating exclusionary laws in general—an ideology in which amalgamation between white and nonwhite persons is assumed to threaten the purity of the white American body politic as much as the white American body.

Viewed in this manner, the anti-miscegenation statute, far from being a relic of America’s racist past, is especially relevant to contemporary arguments regarding immigration. For although the primary thesis of anti-miscegenation law—the assertion that nonwhites are incompatible with whites physically—has been disproven (or at least driven underground) by modern science, a dangerous corollary to that thesis—the notion that certain classes of immigrants, by virtue of their race and/or country of origin, are incompatible with American civic and political culture—endures. The modern nativist revival, this Article will conclude, invokes the specter of anti-miscegenation law and Chinese exclusion in charging that the most recent wave of migration to the United States, comprised mostly of Latinos and Asians, “cannot or will not assimilate” and threaten to degrade and undermine “national identity”…

Read the entire paper here.

“Multiracial” Today, but “What” Tomorrow? The Malleability of Racial Identification Over Time

Paper presented at the Population Association of America 2005 Annual Meeting
2005-03-31 through 2005-04-02
Philladelphia, Pennsylvania
27 pages

Jamie Mihoko Doyle
Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology
University of Pennsylvania

Grace Kao, Professor of Sociology, Education, and Asian American Studies
University of Pennsylvania

We use the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine the change in racial identification among Multiracial Adolescents and Monoracial Adolescents as they make the transition from adolescence to adulthood. In general, we find that Multiracial youth exhibit more volatile racial identities than Monoracial youth. Youth who reported Native-American & White in Wave I were the least likely to maintain this identity (22%), while about 50% of Asian-white and black-white youth maintained their identities. In empirical analyses, we find that youth with more highly educated mothers have more stable racial identities between two waves of the survey. Physical appearance, as described by the interviewer at Wave I, is an important predictor of change between Wave I and Wave III responses. Our results suggest that while racial identity is malleable, it is still conditioned on variation in physical appearances.

Read the entire paper here.

Confounding Identity: Exploring the Life and Discourse of Lucy E. Parsons

Berks Conference for Women Historians
2011
29 pages

Michelle Diane Wright, Assistant Professor of History
Community College of Baltimore County

Despite the vast research conducted on radical activist history of late nineteenth century Chicago, there is very little that examines political and social ideologies that diverged from the westernized male archetype of the era. Furthermore, the contrived disciplinary divide that separates scholarly study into artificial and static compartments such as labor history, anarchist history, women’s studies or others, oversimplifies the contributions of individuals that straddle all categories of endeavor. Lucy Parsons, a woman of color, was born in Waco, Texas in 1853 but moved to Chicago in 1873 and became a pivotal figure in the labor and anarchist movements well into the early twentieth century causing the Chicago Police Department to label her “more dangerous than a thousand rioters.” Frequently overshadowed by the eminence of her husband Albert Parsons—labeled by many a Haymarket martyr—Lucy Parsons was a significant agitator in her own right and navigated a path for herself far outside the realm of the predominant thinking of other revolutionaries at that time. This paper examines the life and discourse of Lucy Parsons in an effort to contend with seemingly contradictory disciplines and perspectives in order to synthesize a holistic approach to a woman who confounds the strict identities that many have forced on her. Lucy Parsons’ impact upon concepts of injustice, governmental repression and labor inequalities come from a paradigm often marginalized and misinterpreted not only because it wasn’t derived from a source that was European or male, but also because her views came from a mind unconcerned with convention in relation to accepted societal standards. I am conducting research on the contributions of Lucy Parsons in order to write an accurate, comprehensive biography that also dissects marginalized perspectives of widely accepted historical accounts. In turn, I endeavor to provide a fuller and more holistic consideration of a historic period many assume is already understood.

Black By Default?

Lucy Parsons was born in Waco, Texas, in 1853 but moved to Chicago in 1873 where she lived until her death in 1942. She was a pivotal figure in several radical movements well into the early twentieth century causing the Chicago Police Department to label her “more dangerous than a thousand rioters.” Scholars, including biographer Carolyn Ashbaugh, have categorized Parsons solely African American although she never embraced the designation herself. Lucy Parsons publicly claimed to possess Mexican and Native American extraction. As was often the case of nineteenth century social mores, ill-informed Whites with social agendas centered on White supremacy designed racial categories employing superficial visual characteristics such as skin color, facial features and hair texture. In order to maintain White preeminence racial descriptions were dichotomous labels of White or Black, generally resulting in individuals possessing one drop of any non-European blood being deemed Black by default.

Further confounding public perception, Lucy Parsons was essentially, but not legally, married to a White man. Her husband, moreover, was one of the four men hanged following the Haymarket Massacre that occurred in Chicago in 1886, a fact that often overshadows the significant contributions of Lucy Parsons. Contrived labels such as of miscegenation or amalgamation clouded the legacy of Lucy Parsons as mainstream newspapers and other contemporaries publicly relegated her solely to the category of Black for no other reason than to discredit her efforts as well as those of her husband.

This essay analyzes the life and rhetoric of radical leftist agitator Lucy Parsons with the intention of providing a healthier understanding of the complicated world of racial identity politics during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While wider society—and even her death certificate—labeled her “Negro,” she was conversely accustomed to the concoction of nineteenth century Texas’ more complicated caste system that took into account all possible ethnic equations. Coming from a birthplace where she might have considered herself anything from Mestizo to Mulatto or any other of the dozens of categories utilized at the time, she was not culturally prepared for wider society’s monoracial designation of Black, and therefore scoffed at its validity.

In hindsight, onlookers often accuse Lucy Parsons of negating her African heritage for a seemingly more desirable ethnic identity. There is a sense, especially within the modern African American community, that a person of color self-labeling anything other than exclusively Black is virtually treasonous and committing a form of identity denial and self-hate. Criticism of notable individuals such as Barack Obama, Tiger Woods and others exemplify this sentiment of betrayal. In actuality, Lucy Parsons seemed to be holistically embracing her complete ethnic heritage, not merely a fraction of it. Therefore, the question must ultimately be posed as to how the legacy of those early externally defined racial and ethnic designations can provide a better consideration of multiracial designations in contemporary times…

Read the entire paper here.

From Colour-Blindness to Recognition? Political Paths to New Identity Practices in Brazil and France

Prepared for presentation at the conference:
Le multiculturalisme a-t-il un avenir?
Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne University
2010-02-26 through 2010-02-27
25 pages

Karen Bird, Associate Professor of Political Science
McMaster University, Canada

Jessica Franklin
Department of Political Science
McMaster University, Canada

For decades, both France and Brazil officially denied the existence of race and, by extension, racism. France, with its republican and universalist normative framework, insisted on a political project of assimilative integration and non-differentiation among citizens in the public sphere. Race and ethnicity, in this regard, were not merely suspect but politically and normatively illegitimate categories. Despite the significant role of colonialization and immigration in modern French social history, the theme of ethnic and racial relations would remain taboo in both political discourse and social science research until the late-1990s. Brazil, on the other hand, constructed itself as a nation representing the idea of a “racial democracy.” In a progressive fashion since the abolition of slavery, racial mixing and harmonious racial relations became a central pillar of Brazilian democracy. They were held to be so amply developed as to provide no room for racial discrimination. Despite these official paradigms of colour-blindness, both France and Brazil have taken significant steps in recent years towards recognizing ethnic difference and combating structures of racist discrimination. This paper examines the emergence of the theme of race and ethnicity in public discourse and public policies in France and Brazil, looking at similarities and differences in the political pathways of transformation across the two countries.

Read the entire paper here.

Racialisation in Jamaica

Mapping Global Racisms Project (2012- )
University of Leeds
Working Papers
13 pages

Benjamin Joyce

Introduction

The processes of racialisation in Jamaica reflect a complex and sustained ideological grounding upon colonial logics which actively repress perceived racial otherness. Despite the insistence of governmental institutions and the projected image of a raceless nation, contemporary Jamaica is still subject to overt and entrenched forms of racist discourse. The island’s racial climate must be seen within the context of a potent and active colonial legacy, through which social values of worth and economic racialisation are fundamentally determined by skin colour. The class structure of Jamaica is inexorably tied to racialisation, as such it enduringly pervades and dictates all elements of Jamaican life. Specific studies of Jamaican racialisation have been limited, in conjunction with a government unwilling to explore it’s domestic race problem, the operation of a racial machine is left unchecked and in no small way contributes to Jamaica’s stagnant economy and warring society. It is the purpose of this essay to explore the racialisation of post-colonial Jamaica and to expose how ‘the social regulation of race’1, enduringly limits its Afro-Caribbean population in economy, society and to a certain extent politics. This focus shall not be at the expense of other races, however, black Jamaicans are at a nexus of racial judgement.

The perceived identity of Jamaica

The picture painted by Jamaican governmental institutions is one of harmony in an ideologically raceless society. This post-raciality was not sought through any definitive steps to absolving racial difference, rather, the government conscripted the concealment (not removal) of racial boundaries; this is reflected in Jamaica’s national Motto — “Out of Many, One People.” The desire to strip the nation of a globally perceived race does not reflect the unification of race through assimilation, rather, it serves to strengthen the divide between Jamaican ‘races.’ Despite this, the racial diversity of the island has been seen to reference an environment of equality, multiculturalism and diversity. Wardle describes a ‘globalized image of a racial consciousness which defines a land of free-choice.’ This image of Jamaica, must be seen in the context of a government dependent upon its tourist industry which ‘has become, in recent years, the most vital component of the Jamaican economy.’  The instability of contemporary Jamaica’s economy is attributable to the decaying foundations of a plantation economy which favours white Jamaicans over blacks. As a result of this selective presentation, there is little external recognition of race hate within Jamaica. More alarmingly and certainly symptomatic of the true nature of Jamaican race, there is little internal administrative recognition of domestic racism.

The general assessment of Jamaica is inexorably linked to the globalized identity of (predominantly black) Jamaican citizens. Hence, a prevalent global expectation to be quintessentially Jamaican; and to conform to a black dreddie phenotype exists. Whilst global expectations such as these seem trivial, in a country whose ‘people acquired globalized world views,’ this expectation is imported and takes hold in Jamaica…

…The racial identity of Jamaica

The truth of perceived Jamaican races is far more diverse than the homogenous black perception of the west, rather presents ‘a situation of considerable racial ideological complexity.’ Miller suggests ‘Racial groups intermarried to produce Jamaican society from a varying mixture of Europeans, Jews, Africans, Indians and Chinese races.’ However, these interactions were mediated through a colonial and caste system of judgement. Needless to say, the relationship between the first white and African inhabitants was one of white superiority. The arrival of east Indians and the shadist caste-system under which their society is structured, compounded the degradation of African-Jamaicans; widening the void between blacks and other Jamaican ethnicities. This process of racialisation seems to conform to Goldberg’s relational methodology which suggests; ’colonial outlooks, interests, dispositions and arrangements set the… frameworks for… engaging and distancing, exploiting and governing, admitting and administering those conceived as racially distinct and different- and relatedly for elevating and privileging those deemed racially to belong to the dominant. Certainly, the importation of an Indian caste system had the potential to disrupt such a reading, but their subservience to whites and denigration to blacks, meant that this system correlated neatlywith sustained colonial philosophies.

The colour-based classification of race, which characterizes racial relations throughout the Caribbean has evolved into a number of categories which oversimplify the genesis of racial distinction in the country; White, Brown and Black. These divisions are seen to correlate with ’the socioeconomic categories of upper class, middle class and working class.’ ‘This colour scheme characterizes the social, economic and political institutions in Jamaica today, even though over time the colonial prejudices have been hidden behind education and social class.’ Again, Miller’s lexical choice is a significant one; hidden, the effects of governmental concealment are pervasive. There have been superficial social reforms, but increasing poverty and subsequent criminality; leads to the increase and fortification of a rich-poor divide…

…Jamaican racialisation has established a number of modes of racist interactions. Firstly, racialisation from above; the imposition of racial categories and therefore judgements of worth, by a light skinned minority upon majority populus. Secondly, the notion of associational race, a majoritive judgement whereby a persons social status and resultant associations define their racial identity. And finally, self- racialisation; the individual’s ascription to ‘characteristics’ defining ethnicity and their personal judgements of them.

Racialisation from above, is arguably the basis for the other two modes, in that it is the mode which establishes a racial hierarchy. However, of increasing significance in contemporary Jamaica are the latter two. Associational race in particular factors in the interactions between ‘Brown’ Jamaicans and blacks.

The illegitimate offspring of absentee plantation owners were often left in positions of authority, with benefits of such status; hence, they ‘emerged as the elite class within Jamaican society after emancipation.’ Inheritance for mixed race Jamaicans, and their perceived success through associations with a white world, further enforced the dominance of fairness and perpetuated the racial alienation African-Jamaicans. Protection for the offspring of whites was written into the original colonial charters, showing that de jure and de facto racism, were literally written into the hierarchy of the island.

Alleyne alleges that ‘in Jamaica, “brown”… has become the more active pole of opposition and antithesis to black.’ This rift was reflected in Marcus Garvey’s judgements of ‘mulattoes.’ He stated, ‘they [mixed-race Jamaicans] train themselves to believe that in the slightest shade the coloured man is above the black man and so it runs up to white.’

This view typifies the racially fractured infrastructure of thought which reacts to oppression by supporting the stratification of race. Contrary to Garvey’s assertion, mixed race citizens are not training themselves, rather are subject to a pervasive and prevailing system which favours fair skin. Consequently, Jamaican mixed race citizens (in accordance with global precedent) suffer a state of suspension between poles, denied full integration to either. Considering the breadth of Jamaican mixed-race heritage; this reflects the implosive depreciation of individual race.

However, the same notion of associational race does not factor in the final mode of racist interaction; self-racialisation. Both of the other modes through essentially force blacks to apologise for their racial otherness. Hence, the need for self-affirmation emerges, an identification with and celebration of racial allegiances. That being said, alongside this positive affirmation there lies ‘a pernicious internalized form of racism which involves prejudice, stereotyping and perceptions of beauty among members of the same racial group, whereby light skin is more highly valued that dark skin.’…

Read the entire paper here.