Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

Category: Definitions

hypodescent

2009-06-16

Hypodescent is the practice of determining the classification of a child of mixed-race ancestry by assigning the child the race of his or her more socially subordinate parent. Because Caucasians were historically socially dominant in the Western world, mixed-race children in slave societies were most frequently assigned the status of their non-Caucasian parent. This was…
Mix-d:

2009-06-16

mix-d: (pronounced “mixed”) Describes a position of pride and place where one can bring all sides of their cultural identity together and express an identity which is similar to but not specifically like either. By dropping the term race we make a step forward and begin to talk about a fully lived experience rather than…
race

2009-06-13

“…’race’ as it is understood … was a social mechanism invented in the eighteenth century to refer to those populations brought together in colonial America: … European settlers, conquered Indians, and Africans brought in to supply slave labor… [Race] … subsumed a growing ideology of inequity devised to rationalize European attitudes and the treatment of…