Mixed Race Studies

Legalizing Identities: Becoming Black or Indian in Brazil’s Northeast

University of North Carolina Press
June 2009
272 pages
6.125 x 9.25, 18 illus., 2 maps, notes, bibl., index
Cloth ISBN  978-0-8078-3292-9
Paper ISBN  978-0-8078-5951-3

Jan Hoffman French, Assistant Professor of Anthropology
University of Richmond

Anthropologists widely agree that identities—even ethnic and racial ones—are socially constructed. Less understood are the processes by which social identities are conceived and developed. Legalizing Identities shows how law can successfully serve as the impetus for the transformation of cultural practices and collective identity. Through ethnographic, historical, and legal analysis of successful claims to land by two neighboring black communities in the backlands of northeastern Brazil, Jan Hoffman French demonstrates how these two communities have come to distinguish themselves from each other while revising and retelling their histories and present-day stories.

French argues that the invocation of laws by these related communities led to the emergence of two different identities: one indigenous (Xocó Indian) and the other quilombo (descendants of a fugitive African slave community). With the help of the Catholic Church, government officials, lawyers, anthropologists, and activists, each community won government recognition and land rights, and displaced elite landowners. This was accomplished even though anthropologists called upon to assess the validity of their claims recognized that their identities were “constructed.” The positive outcome of their claims demonstrates that authenticity is not a prerequisite for identity. French draws from this insight a more sweeping conclusion that, far from being evidence of inauthenticity, processes of construction form the basis of all identities and may have important consequences for social justice.

The Interracial Experience: Growing Up Black/White Racially Mixed in the United States

Praeger Publishers
2000-11-30
168 pages
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-275-97046-8
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-275-97046-8
eBook ISBN: 978-0-313-00033-1

Ursula M. Brown, Psychotherapist in Private Practice
Montclair, New Jersey, USA

The number of black-white mixed marriages increased by 504% in the last 25 years. By offering relevant demographic, research, and sociocultural data as well as a series of intensely personal and revealing vignettes, Dr. Brown investigates how mixed race people cope in a world that has shoehorned them into a racial category that denies half of their physiological and psychological existence. She also addresses their struggle for acceptance in the black and white world and the racist abuses many of them have suffered.

Brown interweaves research findings with interviews of children of black-white interracial unions to highlight certain psychosocial phenomenon or experiences. She looks at the history of interracial marriages in the United States and discusses the scientific and social theories that underlie the racial bigotry suffered by mixed people. Questions of racial identity, conflict, and self-esteem are treated as are issues of mental health. An important look at contemporary mixed race issues that will be of particular interest to scholars, researchers, students, and professionals dealing with race, family, and mental health concerns.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Three Interracial People
An Orientation
Racism
Racial Identity, Conflict and Self-esteem
When the Cloth Don’t Fit
The Family
Places to Live and Learn
Love and Color
Being Well
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C

The Coexistence of Race and Racism: Can They Become Extinct Together?

University Press of America
June 2005
204 pages
Paper 0-7618-3213-0 / 978-0-7618-3213-3

Janis Faye Hutchinson, Associate Professor of Anthropology
University of Houston

Race and racism are interconnected historically and in the modern world. This connection is related to changing social, political, and economic conditions that impact how we think of others and ourselves. Race and racism are also connected to biological discoveries that justify how we think of others and ourselves. The main focus of this book is the examination of these connections. It is argued that while both race and racism are social constructions, the justification for racism changed as the definition and attributes of races were modified to correspond with new developments in biology and genetics.

Whereas biological discoveries are one side of this construction, changing social situations represent the other. That is, racism also responds to changing social, political, and economic conditions that alter its justification. In addition, scientific constructions of race are impacted by social factors that serve to direct the “scientific disclosures” on human diversity. These factors form the context for the intricate relationship between race and racism.

The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term for a belief among some people in the United States that a person with any trace of African ancestry is black.

See also: hypodescent.

Wikipedia

For more information, see Winthrop D. Jordan’s (Paul Spickard, ed.) “Historical Origins of the One-Drop Racial Rule in the United States,” in the Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies (Volume 1, Issue 1, 2014).

The Gap Between Whites and Whiteness: Interracial Intimacy and Racial Literacy

Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race
September 2006
Volume 3, Issue 2
pages 341-363
DOI: 10.1017/S1742058X06060231

France Winddance Twine, Professor of Sociology
University of California, Santa Barbara

Amy C. Steinbugler, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Dickinson University

How do White members of Black-White interracial families negotiate the meanings of race, and particularly Whiteness? Inspired by W. E. B. Du Bois‘s concept of double consciousness, this article argues that interracial intimacy is a microlevel political site where White people can acquire a critical analytical lens that we conceptualize as racial literacy. This article fills a gap in the empirical and theoretical literature on race and Whiteness by including gay, lesbian, and heterosexual families on both sides of the Atlantic. Drawing on two ethnographic research projects involving one hundred and twenty-one interracial families in the United Kingdom and the eastern United States, we provide an analysis of how White people learn to translate racial codes, decipher racial structures, and manage the racial climate in their communities. We draw on “racial consciousness” interviews conducted with one hundred and one heterosexual families and twenty gay and lesbian families to present seven portraits that illuminate three dimensions of racial literacy: double consciousness, negotiation of local racial meanings, and seeing routine forms of everyday racism.

Read the entire article here.

Understanding Interracial Relationships

Russell House Publishing
June 2009
160 pages
ISBN:978-1-905541-53-9

Toyin Okitikpi, Professor
University of Bedfordshire

It is no longer a novelty to see people of different races and ethnicity holding hands and going about their daily lives. Between 1991 and 2001, the British population grew by 4.0 per cent, while the mixed population increased by 138 per cent; and in 2008 the Office of National Statistics reported more people involved in interracial relationships in Britain than in any other country in Europe. But despite the normality of seeing children of mixed parentage and couples – married or cohabiting – in interracial relationships, there remains strong interest in the nature of the relationships, in the motivations that drive them and in the experiences of the children that are born from such relationships. Sometimes this is articulated as concern and prejudice, both in society as a whole and in the helping professions.

This book provides an analysis of the experiences of the people involved in such relationships and explores the implications for anyone who works with them. For counselors, social workers and others involved in work with families and children, it will also be illuminate learning and research in these areas.

Most publications to date that explore practice around interracial relationships focus on the children of mixed parentage. This book explores the experiences, dilemmas and complexities involved in forming intimate relationships across the racial divide. But, as workers’ attitudes and approaches towards children of mixed parentage are generally guided by their views and assumptions about the nature of interracial relationships, this is an important book about working with children, as well as with couples. It:

• provides detailed discussion of the history of the wider social and economic relationship between white and black people
• discusses the way black and white relationships have evolved over the centuries and the underlying assumptions
• offers an account of the dilemmas and complexities involved in interracial relationships
• explores the nature of the explanations that have been advanced by others about people’s motivation for getting involved in such relationships
• explores the reactions, views, attitudes and concerns others have towards the relationship; and identifies how people in interracial relationships cope with the negative attitudes and approbation
• identifies the implications for effective intervention by welfare professionals working with couples involved in interracial relationships.

Reflecting the fact that interracial relationships consisting of black men and white women constitute the highest proportion of interracial relationships in the UK, and that this type of relationship also appears to provoke the greatest disapprobation from many in society, this book is based on interviews with 20 black men and 20 white women who are or have been in interracial relationships. It focuses on developing a better understanding.

Table of Contents

Introduction – looking at interracial relationships

The historical context: looking back to look forward

• Black people in Britain: a brief history
• A changing relationship
• A very visible relationship
• Interracial as an artistic genre
• Making sense of the fault lines
• Racial mixing

Making sense of people’s experiences

• Experiences matter
• Revisiting the popular explanations
• Interracial relationships: is it all about sex?
• Managing interracial relationship
• Looking beyond the boundaries

New book highlights the needs of Mixed Parentage children

London South Bank University
News
2005-06-02

Dr Toyin Okitikpi with his challenging new book [Working with Children of Mixed Parentage]

Proportionately a higher percentage of mixed parentage children end up in care and in Britain we only statistically classify mixed parentage for children where one parent is black and the other white. The new book argues this totally misses the children who for example may be of Asian Chinese descent and when it comes to documents such as the National Census the best we can do is offer them the classification of ‘other’ and ask them to specify.

Toyin explains that there are problems with this form of pigeon holing. He explains, “We are expecting these children to be forced into one classification or another and there is confusion about the children’s identity and their sense of self”…

Read the entire article here.

Young Single White Mothers with Black Children in Therapy

Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry
1996
Vol. 1, No. 1
pages 19-28
DOI: 10.1177/1359104596011003

N. J. Banks
Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Birmingham

This article describes the treatment of 16 single, white women aged 17-23 years with black mixed-parentage children within an integrative psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioural therapy model. Issues of loss, isolation and familial rejection are discussed. The mothers’ abilities to cope with their children’s ethnic identities in the context of absent fathers are examined, as are the mother-child relationships. Suggestions are made for enabling therapy.

White Mothers, Mixed-Parentage Children and Child Welfare

British Journal of Social Work
Volume 29, Number 2 (1999)
pages 269-284

Ravinder Barn, Professor of Social Policy and Social Work
Royal Holloway, University of London

It is now well documented that the majority of mixed-parentage children who enter the public care system in Britain have a white biological mother and a black African Caribbean father. This paper explores some of the underlying factors which increase the vulnerability of mixed-parentage children. The situation of white single mothers is examined in the context of ‘race’, class, gender and location in British society. Empirical findings from two recent research studies provide a profile of white single mothers and their children in receipt of social work help and assistance. Areas for further discussion are raised within this framework.

Eurocentrism in Social Work Education: From Race to Identity Across the Lifespan as Biracial Alternative

Journal of Social Work
Volume 5, Number 1 (April 2005)
pages 101-114
DOI: 10.1177/1468017305051238

Ronald E. Hall, Professor of Social Work
Michigan State University, East Lansing

• Summary: Consequent to Eurocentric hegemony, race has been erroneously validated as the standard identity construct by social work education as well as much of Western science. For example, the approach utilized in this study includes reference to the literature of biologists and medical personnel who contend that race is scientifically meaningless.
• Findings: The findings suggest that for those who are biracial, living in the midst of race constructionists encourages a life of identity conflict. That conflict is more often irrelevant to monorace subjects who by skin color are assigned to a single race category. This is an important notion for those, such as social workers, working in the human services.
• Applications: The application proposes a human development across the lifespan construct to serve as an ecological alternative to the pathologizing influences of race. Although race and other Eurocentric constructs may have had their place at one time, the rapidly changing demographic dynamics of Western populations, including Britain, Europe and the Americas, and the inconceivable pace at which diversity is becoming the norm necessitate a commensurate change in policy, practice and theory. Identity across the lifespan in preparation of social workers for the 21st century is a viable alternative.

Read or purchase the article here.