Mixed Race Studies

Will new age of mixed-race identities loosen the hold of race or tie it up in tighter knots?

Newhouse News Service
2000-04-20

Jonathan Tilove

Ward Connerly, who describes himself as a roughly equal mix of French Canadian, Choctaw, African and Irish ancestry and who is married to a white woman, spent much of the last decade campaigning to end race-based affirmative action. Susan Graham, a white woman married to a black man, has spent that same decade working tirelessly as the founder of Project RACE (Reclassify All Children Equally) so that her two children and others like them could be counted in official statistics as “multiracial.”

For the first time in American history, respondents to the decennial census are able to identify themselves by as many races as they see fit. The tabulated results will yield 63 different categories and combinations—or 126 considering that each of those 63 could also be either Hispanic or non-Hispanic. And that does not take into account the limitless possibilities for writing in some race of one’s own devising.

But when the 2000 census is completed, all the folks at both the Connerly and Graham households will be assigned the race of their nearest neighbors. Why? Because both Connerly and Graham, for their own very different reasons, refused to check any of the boxes on the race question.

As America embarks on a new, more complicated era of racial counting, a look at how some of those close to the issue chose to answer the census race question presents a puzzle: Is this dawning age of mixed-race identities likely to loosen the hold of race on the American mind, or merely tie it up in tighter knots?

“It is progress,” said G. Reginald Daniel, a sociologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “Whether people understand it or not, we’re undoing 300 years of racial formation. We have yet to see the after-effect, but it will be radical.”

Daniel, who grew up black in Kentucky, said he has been thinking about his racial identity since Dec. 2, 1955, when his first-grade teacher reported that Rosa Parks had been arrested for refusing to let a white passenger have her seat on the bus. “It’s time we colored people stood up for our rights,” the teacher told her students.

Daniel was puzzled. He raised his hand and asked the teacher who “colored” people were. “Everyone in this school,” the teacher, startled, replied. But, Daniel persisted, what color are they? “We’re brown! We’re Negroes!” the teacher replied…

But Daniel’s skin was tan, a blend of white and brown, and when he asked his mother about it she explained that while they were a mix of African, Irish, English, French, American Indian, Asian Indian and maybe even German-Jewish, they were still members of the “Negro race.”

Over time, Daniel came to identify himself as multiracial. He became a leading intellectual adviser, at one point to Project RACE and on a continuing basis to the Association for MultiEthnic Americans (AMEA)—the largest of the organizations that pressed for a multiracial category on the census. The federal Office of Management and Budget rejected that possibility but in 1997, after four years of deliberation, announced that on the 2000 census respondents would be able to check as many races as apply…

…But to Susan Graham, the form felt like one step forward and two steps back. Graham had wanted a separate multiracial category so that children like hers would not have to choose between their parents’ racial identities, or end up some unclassifiable “other.”…

…“I’m not about to have my children check more than one box only to be relegated back to the black category,” said Graham, who now lives in Tallahassee, Fla. She left the race question blank.

But the census cannot permit blanks, so, by a statistical method known as “hot deck imputation,” Graham’s family will be assigned races that blend best with their closest neighbors—the assumption being that most people live in neighborhoods that match them racially. And, in Graham’s case that is true, with immediate neighbors black, white and interracial.

Rainier Spencer, a professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, has studied the multiracial movement in his book, “Spurious Issues: Race and Multiracial Identity Politics in the United States.” He faults Graham’s logic.

In Spencer’s view, Graham and others in the multiracial movement deploy their distaste with the one-drop rule selectively. If they truly want its repeal, they must recognize that virtually all African-Americans are multiracial.

To him, the whole notion of a multiracial identity depends on an assumption that racial identity is real. And as Spencer told some 100 students at the Pan-Collegiate Conference on the Mixed-Race Experience, held recently at Harvard University and Wellesley College, “All racial identity is bogus, no matter whether the prefix is mono, multi or bi.”

The “insurgent idea” of multiraciality can undermine the racial order by “demonstrating the absurdity of fixed and exclusive racial categories,” he writes in his book. But the moment multiracial becomes an official category—a box to be checked—it no longer undermines the existing racial paradigm, but expands it.

Moreover, Spencer said, while race may not truly exist, racism does, and OMB acted quite appropriately in ordering the racial data collapsed back into traditional categories for civil rights purposes…

Read the entire article here.

Obama is a Descendant of Nefertiti & Confucius Too

Dominion of New York
2012-07-31

Alondra Nelson, Associate Professor of Sociology
Columbia University

There was breaking news yesterday in the lively world of presidential genealogy. Barack Obama–who is regarded as an inauthentic African-American by some because his late mother, Stanley Anne Dunham, was a white woman and his father’s ancestry traced to Kenya rather than Kentucky or the Carolinas–was suggested to be descended on his maternal side from John Punch, a black man.

Researchers at Ancestry.com, the online root-seeking company, derived Obama’s relationship to Punch using a combination of standard genealogical research and Y-chromosome genetic analysis. (Y-DNA is passed essentially unchanged from fathers to sons to grandsons to great-grandsons, etc.) The timing of this announcement could not be better for the Provo, Utah company that just reported booming fourth quarter profits and is rumored to be seeking a buyer.

An indentured servant in 17th century Virginia, Punch would earn the lamentable designation of “the first documented African enslaved for life in American history” when he was reduced to chattel as punishment for his attempt to escape servitude. Punch, like Obama the elder, was an African; tragically, what makes Punch “African-American” is his slave status. With rebellious, freedom-loving roots firmly planted in the New World, our nation’s first president of African descent —Punch’s 11th great grandson–may just be “black enough” after all…

…We have a high threshold for political gossip and, in the digital age, genealogy is a fast fad that shows no sign of passing out of vogue. But the primary reason these ancestry stories entrance us is because they bring us face-to-face with our national fascination with and anxieties about racial miscegenation. Take, for example, the minor controversy over Rachel L. Swarns recently published American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White and Multicultural Ancestors of Michelle Obama. Megan Smolenyak, the prominent genealogist who conducted the research for Swarns’ widely-read 2007 co-authored article that revealed Michelle Obama’s white slavery-era ancestors, critiqued it in the Huffington Post. Smolenyak was stunned that:

the maternal half of the first lady’s family tree — her mother Marian (Shields) Robinson’s side [was] overlooked. Though Michelle Obama has classic Great Migration roots winding their way back to at least eleven states, southern Virginia — and especially Henry and Pittsylvania counties — can claim more of her heritage than any other location. Fully a quarter of her ancestry traces to this area on the North Carolina border, but inexplicably, it’s this portion of her family tree that’s given short-shrift.

Smolenyak further complained that “the ‘revelation’ of the white ancestor via DNA testing” wasn’t unexpected; “the only true surprise in the book” she concluded, was “the absence of over a third of Mrs. Obama’s known ancestors.”…

Read the entire article here.

Three Black Scholars Honored With Prestigious Awards

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education
2012-07-26

…G. Reginald Daniel, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, received the 2012 Loving Prize from the Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival in Los Angeles. Established in 2008, the prize is given to artists, storytellers, and community leaders who have shown a dedication to celebrating the “mixed” experience. Professor Daniel was recognized for his scholarship of multiracial identity. He is the author of More Than Black? Multiracial Identity and the New Racial Order (Temple University Press). His latest book is Machado de Assis: Multiracial Identity and the Brazilian Novelist (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012)…

Read the entire article here.

“Not Half But Double”: Exploring Critical Incidents in the Racial Identity of Multiracial College Students

Journal of College Student Development
Volume 53, Number 4, July/August 2012
pages 524-541
DOI: 10.1353/csd.2012.0054

Angela H. Kellogg, Director of Academic Advising and Career Services
University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point

Debora L. Liddell, Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of the Higher Education and Students Affairs Program
University of Iowa

This qualitative study explored how critical incidents shape multiracial students’ understanding of race and identity at predominantly White institutions. Participants included 14 multiracial undergraduate students from two institutions in the Midwest. Four categories of critical incidents were identified from the data: (a) confronting race and racism, (b) responding to external definitions, (c) defending legitimacy, and (d) affirming racial identity. The incidents took many forms and occurred in many contexts. The majority of incidents involved interactions with other students, underscoring the influence of peers. The study also suggests implications for higher education practice and research.

In Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Supreme Court struck down restrictions against interracial marriages. Now- just four decades later, multiracial individuals represent one of the fastest growing segments of the population in the United States. According to the 2010 United States Census, 9 million (3%) of respondents indicated membership in two or more racial groups. Accordingly, a growing number of multiracial youth are enrolling in colleges and universities across the United States (Roberts, 2003). In addition to their rising numbers, multiracial students are becoming more visible and vocal as a group, evidenced by the number of multiracial student organizations, programs, and services appearing on campuses nationwide (Wong & Buckner. 2008).

Despite their growing presence, there is still much to he learned about the ways that multiracial identity is understood by students within the unique context of colleges and universities. Institutions of higher education are rich sites for studying identity (Chickering & Reisser, 1993). and provide multiracial students with ample opportunities to explore and reflect on their racial heritage, prompting them to think about their identity in different ways (Renn, 1998, 2004). Literature indicates that some multiracial college students feel pressured to choose one race, and at times have the sense of being “misperceived. misrepresented, miscategorized, and misunderstood” by faculty, staff, and peers (Cortes, 2000, p. 10). However, much of the previous college student research has been conducted with the underlying assumption that the identity processes of multiracial students are the same as for monoracial students, instead of recognizing the unique needs and developmental processes of multiracial students.

In recent decades, various theories and models have been developed to explain the identity development processes of multiracial persons. Early models of multiracial identity development were grounded in model of Black racial identity (Cross, 1971, 1991). and depicted racial identity as occurring in a series…

Don’t Call Me Hapa

ricepaper: Asian Canadian Arts and Culture
Issue 16.3 (Fall 2011) The Hybrid Issue

Arron Leaf

THERE WAS A MOMENT IN HIGH SCHOOL when I was fascinated with mixed-race identity and the word “Hapa.” Using this Hawaiian term meaning “half” as in “half-white” to describe myself felt empowering, somehow. My mom is Malaysian and my dad is American and, yes, the cliché of mixed-race kids held true for me: Who am I? Where do I fit in?
 
Through my brand-new internet connection I learned that “Hapa” had been adopted by activists trying to fashion a sense of community and identity out of a new generation of mixed-race Asian kids. At the time, about a decade ago, I was listening to rap music about identity politics, black nationalism, and authenticity. In my grade 11 history class I was learning about colonization and the upheavals of the 20th century. I desperately needed to come from somewhere; I needed an identity to anchor myself, and “Hapa” seemed like a way to do that.
 
But the moment soon passed…

Read the entire article here.

The Passing of Anatole Broyard

Chapter in Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man
Random House
1997
256 pages
ISBN: 978-0-679-77666-6

Chapter pages: 180-214

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research
Harvard University

In 1982, an investment banker named Richard Grand-Jean took a summer’s lease on an eighteenth-century farmhouse in Fairfield, Connecticut; its owner, Anatole Broyard, spent his summers in Martha’s Vineyard. The house was handsomely furnished with period antiques, and the surrounding acreage included a swimming pool and a pond. But the property had another attraction, too. Grand-Jean, a managing director of Salomon Brothers, was an avid reader, and he took satisfaction in renting from so illustrious a figure. Anatole Broyard had by then been a daily book reviewer for the Times for more than a decade, and that meant that he was one of literary America’s foremost gatekeepers. Grand-Jean might turn to the business pages of the Times first, out of professional obligation, but he turned to the book page next, out of a sense of self. In his Walter Mittyish moments, he sometimes imagined what it might be like to be someone who read and wrote about books for a living—someone to whom millions of readers looked for guidance.

Broyard’s columns were suffused with both worldliness and high culture. Wry, mandarin, even self-amused at times, he wrote like a man about town, but one who just happened to have all of Western literature at his fingertips. Always, he radiated an air of soigné self-confidence: he could be amiable in his opinions or waspish, but he never betrayed a flicker of doubt about what he thought. This was a man who knew that his judgment would never falter and his sentences never fail him.

Grand-Jean knew little about Broyard’s earlier career, but as he rummaged through Broyard’s bookshelves he came across old copies of intellectual journals like Partisan Renew and Commentary, to which Broyard had contributed a few pieces in the late forties and early fifties. One day, Grand-Jean found himself leafing through a magazine that contained an early article by Broyard. What caught his eye, though, was the contributor’s note for the article—or, rather, its absence. It had been neatly cut out, as if with a razor.

A few years later, Grand-Jean happened on another copy of that magazine, and decided to look up the Broyard article again. This time, the note on the contributor was intact. It offered a few humdrum details—that Broyard was born in New Orleans, attended Brooklyn College and the New School for Social Research, and taught at New York University’s Division of General Education. It also offered a less humdrum one: the situation of the American Negro, the note asserted, was a subject that the author “knows at first hand.” It was an elliptical formulation, to be sure, but for Anatole Broyard it may not have been elliptical enough.

Broyard was born black and became white, and his story is compounded of equal parts pragmatism and principle. He knew that the world was filled with such snippets and scraps of paper, all conspiring to reduce him to an identity that other people had invented and he had no say in. Broyard responded with X-Acto knives and evasions, with distance and denials and half-denials and cunning half-truths. Over the years, he became a virtuoso of ambiguity and equivocation. Some of his acquaintances knew the truth; many more had heard rumors about “distant” black ancestry (wasn’t here a grandfather who was black? a great-grandfather?). But most were entirely unaware, and that was as he preferred it. He kept the truth even from his own children. Society had decreed race to be a matter of natural law, but he wanted race to be an elective affinity, and it was never going to be a fair fight. A penalty was exacted. He shed a past and an identity to become a writer—a writer who wrote endlessly about the act of shedding a past and an identity…

Read the entire chapter here.

“It’s absolutely poetic,” [Sheryll] Cashin said of the discovery. “Race mixing was here from the beginning.”

Krissah Thompson, “Obama’s purported link to early American slave is latest twist in family tree,” The Washington Post, July 30, 2012.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/purported-obama-link-to-first-american-slave-is-latest-twist-in-presidents-family-tree/2012/07/30/gJQAYuG1KX_story.html

…but I’m honestly moving away from biracial & even mixed—I am so disillusioned by the whole notion of ‘race’ at all.

Fanshen Cox, “One Drop of Love: A Daughter’s Search for her Father’s Racial Approval,” #swirlchat, July 27, 2012. http://storify.com/swirlinc/one-drop-of-love-a-daughter-s-search-for-her-fathe