Mixed Race Studies

Chapter One: Barbara Jordan: American Hero

New York Times
1998-12-13

Mary Beth Rogers

Mary Beth Rogers, Barbara Jordan: American Hero, (New York: Bantam, 1998).

BARBARA CHARLINE JORDAN was born February 21, 1936, the third daughter and last child of Benjamin Meredith and Arlyne Patten Jordan. The fortunes of Ben and Arlyne were good enough to pay Dr. Thelma Patten, a relative of Arlyne’s father, John Ed, to deliver the baby at home instead of in Houston’s charity hospital, where the first two Jordan girls had been born. Ben Jordan saw his daughter almost immediately after the delivery, and his first comment was, “Why is she so dark?”

From that moment, skin and body—color, hue, texture, size, condition—began to determine who Barbara Jordan was and how she reacted to her life. She learned quite early that the degree of blackness for a black child mattered. It mattered to her father, and it mattered in the white world, which would be beyond her imagination until she was almost an adult. It also mattered in the black world, her world, the Fifth Ward of Houston, Texas, and would hit her with full force when she was in the all-black Phillis Wheatley High School in the early 1950s. There, her color, her size, her hair texture, and her features would determine and limit her choices. “Color-struck” teachers favored light-skinned students, who were given the honors and awards, the opportunities for college and jobs. They even escaped the harshness of encounters with the white law. A common saying in the African American neighborhoods was, “The lighter the skin, the lighter the sentence.”…

The pain of being a dark-skinned female goes back to slavery and intensified with Reconstruction. The preferential treatment of lighter-skinned, mixed-race African Americans by whites had “laid the groundwork for a pattern of color classism in black America.” It was the lighter-skinned African Americans who had the first opportunities for education and the benefits of freedom in post-Reconstruction America. Certain churches, neighborhoods, colleges, sororities and fraternities, social clubs, even political clubs, harbored a light-colored elite. At one time African Americans had their own “Blue Vein Society“; admission to this Nashville group depended on skin color. An applicant had to be fair enough for the spidery network of purplish veins at the wrist to be visible to a panel of expert judges.

The separate social and educational paths taken by light-skinned and dark-skinned African Americans during Reconstruction divided their world. By the turn of the century, the light-skinned mulattos were the intellectual and political leaders. They were the doctors, lawyers, teachers, writers, and entertainers, admired and emulated by the rest.

The prevalence of skin prejudice began to weaken after the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, and all but disappeared in the African American community with the resurgence of black pride in the 1960s and 1970s. But even before black pride, before “Black is beautiful,” before “I am somebody,” Barbara Jordan got comfortable with herself. By the time she was in the third grade, in 1944, she knew in her guts that she was somebody special. It did not matter to her how black she was. If someone didn’t like her because of her color, she just thought, “Well, those are stupid people, and I don’t have time to deal with them.” Quite early, she had the self-confidence to transcend the limits of her body, whether imposed by color, culture, physical capability—or stupidity! It was a pattern of being and behavior that stayed with her until the day she died. To all who thought that black was not as good as white, her retort was, “That’s a colossal lie!”

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White/Minority Multiraciality: An Exploration of Sociopolitical Consciousness Development

California State University, Sacramento
Spring 2009
118 pages

Melody Marie Antillon Hazzard

Thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work at California State University, Sacramento

There is contention in multiracial studies as to whether multiracial people perpetuate or challenge the current racial hierarchy. This study explores the sociopolitical consciousness of white/minority multiracial people. The themes explored are the connection between the personal and the political, and the positive and negative impacts of passing on dominant culture identification and worldview. Participants had ambivalent attitudes regarding personal attitudes about racial identity and their relationship to the sociopolitical issues. Exploration into the issue of passing suggests that there are new ways to think about the concept. Also included are a discussion about the implications for practice and suggestions for further research.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• 1. THE PROBLEM
  • Introduction
  • Background of the Problem
  • Statement of the Research Problem
  • Purpose of the Study
  • Theoretical Framework
  • Definition of Terms
  • Assumptions
  • Justification
  • Limitations
• 2. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
  • Introduction
  • The Sociopolitical History of Multiracial Individuals in the United States
  • Multiracial Identity Politics, Critical Race Theory, and Current Events
  • The Current State of Whiteness
  • Psychosocial Concerns and Realities of Multiracial Individuals
  • Summary
• 3. METHODOLOGY
  • Introduction
  • Research Question
  • Research Design
  • Study Participants
  • Sample Population
  • Instrumentation
  • Data Gathering Procedures
  • Data Analysis
  • Protection of Human Subjects
  • Summary
• 4. DATA ANALYSIS
  • Introduction
  • Ambivalent Attitudes
  • Positive Effects of Passing on Dominant Culture Identification and Worldview
  • Negative Effects of Passing on Dominant Culture Identification and Worldview
  • Summary
• 5. CONCLUSIONS
  • Conclusions
  • Recommendations
  • Limitations
  • Implications for Social Work Practice and Policy
  • Conclusion
• Appendix A. Interview Questions
• Appendix B. Consent to Participate as a Research Subject
• References

Read the entire thesis here.

Color outside the lines

Columbia Missourian
2006-06-11

Sara Fernández Cendon

The boundaries between traditional racial categories shift as more people identify themselves as multiracial. The term adds another dimension to the complex issue of race in America.

Some say Tiger Woods started it all.

After winning the Masters Tournament in 1997, the golf star described himself as “Cablinasian” — as in Caucasian, black, American Indian and Asian.

Colin Powell, a light-skinned black man, quickly dismissed Wood’s invention.

“In America, which I love from the depths of my heart and soul, when you look like me, you’re black,” Powell said.

Woods says “Cablinasian” honors his multiracial heritage. In 1997 he told Oprah Winfrey that being identified solely as an African-American bothered him. But others, who agree with Colin Powell, believe Woods will always be thought of as black and treated as such.

The Woods-Powell disagreement illustrates the deep rift between those who believe that race is a biological category and those who believe it is a political one. As more mixed-race couples join Woods’ camp by identifying their children as “multiracial,” or even “white,” civil rights groups worry about the loss of historical racial categories.

Critics of the multiracial label believe the American racial landscape is still dominated by the “one-drop” rule, which held that a person with just one black ancestor was still black. Their argument is that you don’t need much “color” to be a “person of color.” Discrimination affects people of color, they say, regardless of how light their skin might be or how they identify themselves racially…

…AGAINST THE MULTIRACIAL LABEL

David Brunsma

White people have made disparaging racial comments around him expecting to get a nod in return. But fair-skinned, red-haired, blue-eyed David Brunsma has no tolerance for “whiteness” because “white” to him is synonymous with privilege. He says he gets questions like, “What are the best neighborhoods in town, if you know what I mean …” His response: “No, I really don’t know what you mean.”

Half-Puerto Rican and half-Caucasian, Brunsma does not think of himself as biracial, but he does consider “Hispanic” to be a racial category…

…FOR THE MULTIRACIAL LABEL

Susan Graham and Project RACE

You can’t blame Ryan Graham for not wanting to check “other” on questionnaires requesting racial information. “It makes me feel like a freak or a space alien,” he testified during a U.S. House hearing on multiracial identification back in 1997, when he was 12 years old.

Ryan’s mother, Susan Graham, is the executive director of Project RACE, an advocacy organization for multiracial individuals. She, too, testified before the House on behalf of a separate multiracial category in census forms.

In her testimony, Graham berated the “all that apply” compromise announced by the Office of Management and Budget just days before the hearing.

“My children and millions of children like them merely become ‘check all that apply’ kids or ‘check more than one box’ children or ‘more than one race’ persons. They will be known as ‘multiple check offs’ or ‘half and halfers,’” she said…

Read the entire article here.