Mixed Race Studies

The Multiracial Option: A Step in the White Direction

California Law Review
Volume 105, Issue 6 (2018)
pages 1853-1878
DOI: 10.15779/Z38H98ZD1S

Alynia Phillips

It is estimated that within fifty years, the white race will lose its stronghold as the majority racial group in the United States. In recent years, this prediction has induced anxiety in everyone from lay citizens to conservative politicians. But this prediction may not come to fruition if the definition of whiteness expands as needed. Parallel to this mounting racial anxiety runs a social movement aimed at promoting the classification of mixed race individuals as “multiracial.” Though on its face this classification appears harmless, the reliance on “multiracial” indicates an implicit deracialization of mixed race individuals, and a tacit devaluation of minority heritage. This Note argues that based on the history of racial classifications in the United States and existing motivations to maintain the white majority, the push for a multiracial category functions as a means by which mixed race individuals can join the ranks of whiteness. With mixed race individuals comprising the fastest growing population in the United States, their acceptance into the white race could secure the white majority for decades to come.

Contents

• Introduction
• I. Relevant Terminology Explained
• II. Unmasking the Players in Today’s Multiracial Movement
  • A.  White Mothers as Racial Ventriloquists
  • B.  Republicans as Multiracial Crusaders
• III. An Evolutionary History of White America
  • A.  Bacon’s Rebellion and the Invention of Whiteness
  • B.  Conceptual Frameworks for American Assimilation
  • C.  Subscribing to Superiority
• IV. Multiracial Exceptionalism and the “Other” Within
• Conclusion

Read the entire article here.

Colin Kaepernick Wins Amnesty International’s Highest Honor

TIME
2018-04-21

Sean Gregory

Colin Kaepernick may not have a job on the football field, but much of the world is still cheering for him.

Amnesty International, the global human rights organization, gave Kaepernick its highest honor — the 2018 Ambassador of Conscience Award — in Amsterdam on Saturday. Past winners of the award, which “celebrates individuals and groups who speak out for justice,” include former South Africa president Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, the education activist from Pakistan who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban, and rock group U2.

The organization recognized Kaepernick for his protest against police violence: his action, kneeling during the national anthem before NFL games, sparked a movement replicated across America and the world, starting a debate about free speech and patriotism that was inflamed by the President of the United States, one of Kaepernick’s most relentless critics…

Read the entire article here.

‘You Don’t Look Black’: How I’m Talking to My Kids About Being Mixed Race

CBC Parents
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
2018-03-15

Kara Stewart-Agostino

Photo by @criene/Twenty20

“Mama, am I black or white?” This was the question I received one night before bed when my son was in grade 1. A boy in his class had been called the N-word at school and he was full of questions.

He wanted to know what it meant and if someone could call him that. Some of the kids had insisted that he is black because (to their eyes) I am black. Others insisted that he’s not because he doesn’t “look black.”

Although the kids on the school yard perceive me as black, I am the child of a Jamaican born mother and a Scottish/Irish-Canadian born father who met in Winnipeg in the 1970s. As a mixed child, questions of racial identity are not new to me. I think of my kids as second generation mixed Canadians — the cultures of their grandparents are layered and entwined. Their skin is fair enough that they could “pass as white” but both have a head full of curls and tan to a golden brown in the summer sun. Meanwhile their Italian-Canadian born father will burn on a partly cloudy June day…

Read the entire article here.

Artist At Work: Mequitta Ahuja Wins A Guggenheim

BmoreArt
Baltimore, Maryland
2018-04-16

Cara Ober, Founding Editor

An Interview with Mequitta Ahuja About Success, Heartbreak, and a Recent Guggenheim Award by Cara Ober

The July 24, 2017 issue of the New Yorker described Mequitta Ahuja‘s work, then on view at the Asia Society Museum, as “whip-smart and languorous.” According to the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, where she was just named a 2018 Fellow, Mequitta Ahuja’s works have been widely exhibited, including venues such as the Brooklyn Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem, Saatchi Gallery, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Crystal Bridges, Baltimore Museum of Art and Grand Rapids Art Museum. Ahuja, a Baltimore-based artist whose parents hail from Cincinnati and New Delhi, has long employed her own image to challenge historic traditions of portrait painting.

I caught up with the artist to ask about her momentous Guggenheim award, announced April 5, 2018, and to discuss the new opportunities and ideas abounding in her studio…

Read the entire interview here.