Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.
I propose that the one drop rule no longer trumps physical appearance, but nonetheless it continues to influence racial identity today. In particular, the one drop rule affects how black-white biracials’ physical appearances are perceived by others. Despite the range in their physical appearances (e.g., some have dark and others light skin), black-white biracial Americans are frequently raced as black. This is because the legacy of the one drop rule has shaped how Americans (of all racial and ethnic backgrounds) perceive normative “black” phenotypes. According to Russell, Wilson, and Hall (1992), black Americans show a “kaleidoscope of skin tones” (9), due both to the long history of interracial mixing between blacks and whites and to the broad definition of “blackness.” Under the one drop rule, individuals with any degree of black ancestry were classified as black; thus, the normative phenotypic image of a “black” person became broad, and we can see today that black phenotypes vary widely in skin tone and other physical characteristics (e.g., nose shape, hair texture). Even today, having some “white” phenotypic characteristics—such as light skin, blue eyes, and straight hair—does not necessarily conflict with Americans’ image of blackness. For example, actress Vanessa Williams and recording artist Beyoncé Knowles are both “black” with some degree of white ancestry and “white” features. While Williams and Knowles do not outwardly appear white (i.e., they could not pass as white), they do have some physical features that reflect their white ancestry; Vanessa Williams has light skin and blue eyes, and Beyonce Knowles has light skin and long, straight hair. Having these “white” normative physical characteristics, however, does not necessarily conflict with Americans’ image of what it looks like to be black.
This broad image of blackness not only influences how Americans view blacks, but also how they view biracial black-white Americans. Regardless of any “white” physical characteristics biracial individuals may have, others tend simply to classify them as black because their perceptions of what a “black” person looks like do not preclude normative “white” physical characteristics. For instance, a biracial person may have straight, long hair, but so do many black Americans (either because of white ancestry or because of hair straightening/“relaxing” techniques common among black women today). As a consequence, many Americans are unable to distinguish between black and biracial phenotypes. Thus, appraisals of these phenotypes (both real and reflected) are influenced by the historical legacy of the one drop rule, which continues to shape black identities even today.
Though I am younger than Ms. Harris by six years, in her Blackness, I recognize my own. It is a Blackness born not in slavery but much later, in a whole other context, in the wake of the civil rights and Black Power movements, when there was no mixed-race category. You were either Black or white. To claim whiteness as a mixed child was to deny and hide Blackness. Our families understood that the world we were growing into would seek to denigrate this part of us and we would need a community that was made up, always and already, of all shades of Blackness. The big secret I knew — and Ms. Harris surely knows it as well — is that our Blackness was born not out of something lost but out of something gained.
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Chronicling Frederick Douglass’s life in an accessible way, this biography engages with history and wrestles with biases, falsehoods, and unknown facts in order to tell Douglass’s story as accurately as possible. Taking a comprehensive look at Douglass’s life from birth to death, the book delves into Douglass’s time as an enslaved African American, his escape, his experiences as a prominent orator and champion of Black rights, his writings and publications, and the influence he had on shaping society of the time. A detailed timeline allows students to quickly reference and recall major points in Douglass’s history, and the book is further augmented by the inclusion of primary documents, which include samples of Douglass’s own copious works, as well as words written about Douglass by his contemporaries. Readers will walk away with not only a better understanding of American history but an appreciation for Frederick Douglass’s impact in his own time and his lasting relevance for all those who continue to fight for a more equal society today.
Table of Contents
Series Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. Historical Context
2. Born in Bondage with Dreams of Liberty
3. Finding Freedom and the Abolitionist Cause
4. No More Master and Mastering Self-Determination Abroad
5. A Man of Independence in Public and Private Life
6. The Erudite Douglass in Letters, Speech, and Prose
We seem to be beginning yet another season of a perennially popular American spectacle, “How Much Is That Mulatto in the Window?” I frequently think that, after 400 years, this show is about to go off the air — jump the shark, as it were. But then it returns, with ever more absurd plot lines. Yet even as a so-called mulatto myself, I can’t stop watching.
The Hollywood pitch goes something like this: Put racially ambiguous Black people in the public eye — Kamala, Meghan, Barack. Have them declare themselves Black. Count down the minutes before the world erupts into outrage, distress and suspicion. People scream their confusion and doubt, accusing the figures of lying about who they really are. It makes for good TV.
On last week’s episode, Donald Trump got his cameo, accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of switching races. “She was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person,” he said during an appearance in front of the National Association of Black Journalists. His staged bewilderment, implying that she was practicing some sort of sinister racial sorcery, felt wild for 2024, when mixed-race people are everywhere, visually overrepresented in Target commercials and Kardashian family reunions. Yet even in the midst of our fetishization, a stubborn strain of mulattophobia remains widespread. And no matter what answer we give to the ubiquitous question — What are you? — someone, somewhere, will accuse us of lying, of being a grifter trying to impersonate another race, a more real race.
Multiracial, mulatto, mixed-nuts, halfies — whatever you want to call us today, we remain the fastest-growing demographic in our country. When we enter the spotlight, we are often treated as specimens, there to be dissected, poked, debated, disputed and disinherited. We are and always have been a Rorschach test for how the world is processing its anxiety, rage, confusion and desire about this amorphous construction we call race…
