Mixed Race Studies

The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White [Discussion]

Lillian Goldman Law Library
Yale University
2011-03-07

Daniel J. Sharfstein, Professor of Law
Vanderbilt University

Moderator: Claire Priest, Professor of Law
Yale University

The Lillian Goldman Law Library together with the Yale Law School Legal History Forum and the Yale Black Law Students Association invite you to a discussion featuring an important new book by Professor Daniel J. Sharfstein, with critical commentary by Professor Claire Priest.
 
The Invisible Line unravels the stories of three families who represent the complexity of race in America and force us to rethink our basic assumptions about who we are. For example, one of the families that started out black produced a Yale-educated Confederate general! This book has been called a “must read” by major scholars spanning the fields of legal history and African American Studies. It is written with the sensitivity of a novelist from the perspective of a legal scholar and provides a fascinating account of how laws and court decisions help shape racial attitudes.

Running Time: 01:17:37

Bantum talks race, religion

The Falcon
Seattle Pacific University
Volume 82, Issue 25 (2011-05-18)

Nicole Critchley

New book looks to redeem ‘mulatto’

Mulattos defy classification, said Assistant Professor of Theology Brian Bantum.

Part black and part white, they do not fit neatly into any preconceived notions of our society—and that, in part, is what makes them so fascinating, he said.

“There is a structure of belief in whiteness, this idea of what it should be. It is a very clean system,” Bantum said. “Mulattos mixed things up.”

At Thursday’s Food for Thought in the Library Reading Room, Bantum read from his book “Redeeming Mulatto: A Theology of Race and Christian Hybridity.” Bantum said the inspiration for this book came from his doctoral dissertation and is highly personal.

Bantum’s book discusses theology in a mixed-race world and explores the intersection between identity and theology, he said. He said he began searching for the answer to race through church and religion, because he wanted to know what it meant to be mulatto and Christian…

…But now a third identity, mulatto—neither black nor white—is very strong, he said, and he believes it is directly tied to the Christian concept of a savior who is both divine and human. Bantum said the mixed identity of mulattos is similar to that of Jesus, who is both God and man…

Read the entire article here.