Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • In First Lady’s Roots, a Complex Path From Slavery

    In First Lady’s Roots, a Complex Path From Slavery

    The New York Times
    2009-10-08

    Rachel L. Swarns

    Jodi Kantor

    WASHINGTON — In 1850, the elderly master of a South Carolina estate took pen in hand and painstakingly divided up his possessions. Among the spinning wheels, scythes, tablecloths and cattle that he bequeathed to his far-flung heirs was a 6-year-old slave girl valued soon afterward at $475.

    In his will, she is described simply as the “negro girl Melvinia.” After his death, she was torn away from the people and places she knew and shipped to Georgia. While she was still a teenager, a white man would father her first-born son under circumstances lost in the passage of time.

    In the annals of American slavery, this painful story would be utterly unremarkable, save for one reason: This union, consummated some two years before the Civil War, represents the origins of a family line that would extend from rural Georgia, to Birmingham, Ala., to Chicago and, finally, to the White House.

    Melvinia Shields, the enslaved and illiterate young girl, and the unknown white man who impregnated her are the great-great-great-grandparents of Michelle Obama, the first lady…

    While President Obama’s biracial background has drawn considerable attention, his wife’s pedigree, which includes American Indian strands, highlights the complicated history of racial intermingling, sometimes born of violence or coercion, that lingers in the bloodlines of many African-Americans. Mrs. Obama and her family declined to comment for this article, aides said, in part because of the personal nature of the subject.

    “She is representative of how we have evolved and who we are,” said Edward Ball, a historian who discovered that he had black relatives, the descendants of his white slave-owning ancestors, when he researched his memoir, “Slaves in the Family.”

    “We are not separate tribes of Latinos and whites and blacks in America,” Mr. Ball said. “We’ve all mingled, and we have done so for generations.”…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Obama’s census mark reveals race views

    Obama’s census mark reveals race views

    The Washington Times
    2010-04-30

    Joseph Curl

    America’s first black president has deliberately shied away from spurring a national discussion on race, most recently by checking only “African-American” on his U.S. census form without offering a word of explanation about his choice.

    The studied silence from the bully pulpit held by President Obama has frustrated multiracial organizations, giving rise to questions about whether the president acted out of political consideration and why the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas would not acknowledge his mother’s heritage.

    “It’s frustrating from a point that there’s a lot of multiracial people out there who see Obama doing that, knowing that he is multiracial, and they think that maybe that’s the right choice,” said Ryan Graham, the product of a mixed-race marriage whose mother founded Project Race in 1991 to push for a multiracial classification on the census form.

    “But there’s a lot of people saying maybe it’s the wrong choice,” he said…

    …There is no question that Mr. Obama’s decision complies with the goals of U.S. census officials; the answer to Question 9 about race is exclusively about “self-identification in which respondents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify.”

    “The racial categories included in the census form generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country, and are not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically or genetically,” the Census Bureau says in its “2010 Census Constituent FAQs.”…

    …But the president’s decision to check only “black” on his census form makes complete sense to Charles W. Mills, a researcher on race and a professor at Northwestern University.

    “Race is a social convention. For him to claim whiteness would be rejected by the social convention of the country. The way I see it, his decision was a perfectly reasonable one, given that this is how the American rules have been,” Mr. Mills said…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Stop the finger-wagging about Obama’s Census form

    Stop the finger-wagging about Obama’s Census form

    The Washington Post
    2010-04-29

    Kevin Huffman

    It’s tough being president. In the last year, pretty much every constituency has expressed disappointment in some facet of Barack Obama’s work or play.

    Now, apparently, the president is even letting down biracial children with his choice of Census categories. Elizabeth Chang writes in a Post op-ed that the president shouldn’t have identified as “black” on the Census given that he is mixed race. She even goes so far as to say that it is “disingenuous” and that “there is an important consequence when our president does not acknowledge half of his heritage, or, more basically, the mother and grandparents who raised him, or even his commonality with his sister, who is also biracial, though with a different mix.”

    Let me start by suggesting this may slightly over-value the deep personal meaning of the Census form. I viewed the form as a seven-minute exercise in ensuring that the District of Columbia gets to count my whole family as residents. Maybe we can even get enough funding to fix the Metro escalators. I hadn’t realized the need to express solidarity with my relatives and ancestors, living and dead…

    Anyway, like Chang, my kids are half Asian and half white, which led me to identify them on the Census as… Asian. My brother is half black and half white. He went with biracial. Somehow neither of these decisions has resulted in meaningfully different personal connections for my family.

    Read the entire op-ed here.

  • Why Obama should not have checked ‘black’ on his census form

    Why Obama should not have checked ‘black’ on his census form

    The Washington Post
    2010-04-29

    Elizabeth Chang, Sunday Magazine Editor

    I have always considered Barack Obama to be biracial, and I had hoped that his election would help our country move beyond the tired concept of race. Unfortunately, the president is not getting with my program.

    Although I knew Obama self-identifies as African American, I was disappointed when I read that that’s what he checked on his census form. The federal government, finally heeding the desires of multiracial people to be able to accurately define themselves, had changed the rules in 2000, so he could have also checked white. Or he could have checked “some other race.” Instead, Obama went with black alone…

    …I am the mother of biracial children (Asian/Caucasian) and believe that multiracial people need to be accepted and acknowledged — even celebrated. The president’s choice disappoints me, and it seems somewhat disingenuous. Obama, who has also referred to himself as a “mutt,” made a big deal during the 2008 campaign of being able to relate to Hawaiians and Midwesterners, Harvard grads and salespeople, blacks, whites, Latinos, whatever — precisely because of his “unconventional” background and multicultural exposure. On the census, however, he has effectively said that when it counts, he is black…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Professor Nikki Khanna to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

    Professor Nikki Khanna to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

    Mixed Chicks Chat (The only live weekly show about being racially and culturally mixed. Also, founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival) Hosted by Fanshen Cox and Heidi W. Durrow
    Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
    Episode: #151 – Professor Nikki Khanna
    When: Wednesday, 2010-05-05 21:00Z (17:00 EDT, 14:00 PDT)

    Nikki Khanna, Associate Professor of Sociology
    University of Vermont

    Dr. Khanna’s primary areas of specialization include race/ethnic relations and social psychology. Her current research draws from both areas and she is particularly interested in studying biracial and multiracial identity. She studies how people racially identify and how identity is shaped and negotiated through social interactions with others in their day-to-day lives.

    Most Recent Publications:

    Download the podcast here.

  • Artist Kip Fulbeck Is Back Exploring Identity, but This Time With Children

    Artist Kip Fulbeck Is Back Exploring Identity, but This Time With Children

    Los Angeles Downtown News
    2010-03-26

    Richard Guzmán

    DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES – Upon entering Mixed, the recently opened show at the Japanese American National Museum, one can’t help but smile.

    The happy young faces depicted in the 70 photographs that make up the exhibit are filled with joyful innocence. One image shows two girls, one in a ballerina outfit, the other wearing rainbow stockings and a necklace and bracelet to match, engaged in a carefree dance; another portrays a little girl proudly holding up her two colorfully dressed rag dolls; a third depicts a close-up of a smiling boy, his long dreadlocks flowing down his face.

    The show, with the full title Mixed: Portraits of Multiracial Kids by Kip Fulbeck, is intended to be playful, interactive and fun. But it also deals with a sensitive subject: identify, and in particular, the identity of people who come from mixed backgrounds. Each of the children in the exhibit is the product of parents of different races or ethnicities…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Do Racist Attitudes Hinder Mothers of Mixed-Race Children?

    Do Racist Attitudes Hinder Mothers of Mixed-Race Children?

    Science Daily
    2010-04-28

    Professor Ravinder Barn and Dr. Vicki Harman from the Centre for Criminology and Sociology at Royal Holloway, University of London are carrying out research into white mothers of mixed-race children. It is part of a wider study of mixed-race children and young people that has spanned more than two decades.

    Parenting as an activity has become the focus for much concern at a policy and academic level, and the experiences of white women mothering mixed-race children is also receiving considerable attention…

    …”In the academic and popular discourse, there is now a concern that ‘mixed families’ have become problematised. White mothers in these settings are often subjected to a racialised critical social gaze in a way that their parenting is placed under scrutiny,” says Professor Barn…

    Read the entire article here.

    University of Royal Holloway London (2010, April 28). Do racist attitudes hinder mothers of mixed-race children?. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 28, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2010/04/100428121600.htm

     

  • Does ‘race’ matter? A study of ‘mixed race’ siblings’ identifications

    Does ‘race’ matter? A study of ‘mixed race’ siblings’ identifications

    Sociological Review
    Volume 58, Issue 2 (May 2010)
    Pages 265 – 285
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-954X.2010.01903.x

    Miri Song, Professor of Sociology
    University of Kent

    ‘Mixed’ people comprise one of the fastest growing populations in Britain today, and their growth refutes the idea that there exist distinct, ‘natural’ races among people in multiethnic societies, such as Britain. In recent years, a large body of scholarship, both in the US and Britain, has begun to investigate the diverse social experiences and racial identifications of mixed people. In this article, I investigate the ways in which mixed siblings perceive and think about race and differences in racial, ethnic, and religious identification within their families. What role do race and the recognition of difference play in sibling relationships and in family life more generally? I draw upon a small number of cases to illustrate the diverse ways in which understandings of race, ethnicity, and religion are (or are not) regarded as important in these families. I also consider whether there are group differences in terms of how disparate types of mixed siblings may perceive pressures to identify in particular ways.

    Read or purchase the article here.

  • Spaces of Multiraciality: Critical Mixed Race Theory

    Spaces of Multiraciality: Critical Mixed Race Theory

    University of Toronto
    Geography  (B.A.) Program
    2010-2011
    Course Number: GGRD19H3
     
    From Tiger Woods to Mariah Carey, the popular mixed race phenomenon has captured the popular imagination and revealed the contradictory logic of categorization underpinning racial divisions. We will explore the complexities of racial identity formation to illuminate the experiences of those who fall outside the prevailing definitions of racial identities.

    For more information, click here.

  • Obama Makes It Official: He’s African-American

    Obama Makes It Official: He’s African-American

    The Huffington Post
    2010-04-05

    Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Political Analyst and Social Issues Commentator

    President Obama unequivocally and unhesitatingly made it official: he’s African-American. That may sound silly and facile to say that but his checking the box “African-American” on his census form did two things. It made meaningless the incessant chatter of whether Obama should be called mixed race or African-American. It recognized the hard and unchanging reality that race relations and conflict in America are still framed in black and white. The one-drop rule in America renders anyone with even a trace of African ancestry in their genealogy as black. It’s a delusion that calling oneself mixed race, no matter how light complexioned they are, will not earn them a pass from the lash of racial persecution.

    …A mere check of the biracial designation on his census form would not spare Obama from any of the routine petty racial harassments and annoyances — the subtle and outright forms of discrimination. The biracial box is a feel-good, paper designation that has no validity in the hard world of American race politics. The instant that Obama tossed his hat in the presidential ring in February 2007, and through his relentless, hyper pressurized presidential battles, the vile, venomous, racial pounding has been non-stop. The Joker Posters, the Confederate and Texas Lone Star flags, the racial taunts, digs, cracks, insults, and slurs, the ape and monkey depictions of him and First Lady Michelle Obama on tens of thousands of web sites is a horrid testament that even a president is not exempt from racial loathing, bi-racial or not…

    …Even though Obama has never called himself anything but African-American, and now has made it official on the census form, the sideshow debate over whether Obama is the black president or the biracial president still creeps up. The debate is even more nonsensical since science has long since debunked the notion of a pure racial type. In America, race has never been a scientific or genealogical designation, but a political and social designation. Anyone with the faintest trace of African ancestry was and still is considered black and treated accordingly….

    Read the entire article here.