Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • Race – The Power of an Illusion

    Race – The Power of an Illusion

    California Newsreel – Film and video for social change since 1968
    2003
    3 Episodes, 56 minutes each
    DVD and VHS

    The division of the world’s peoples into distinct groups – “red,” “black,” “white” or “yellow” peoples – has became so deeply imbedded in our psyches, so widely accepted, many would promptly dismiss as crazy any suggestion of its falsity. Yet, that’s exactly what this provocative, new three-hour series by California Newsreel claims. Race – The Power of an Illusion questions the very idea of race as biology, suggesting that a belief in race is no more sound than believing that the sun revolves around the earth.

    Yet race still matters. Just because race doesn’t exist in biology doesn’t mean it isn’t very real, helping shape life chances and opportunities.

    Episode 1– The Difference Between Us [transcript] examines the contemporary science – including genetics – that challenges our common sense assumptions that human beings can be bundled into three or four fundamentally different groups according to their physical traits.

    Episode 2– The Story We Tell [transcript] uncovers the roots of the race concept in North America, the 19th century science that legitimated it, and how it came to be held so fiercely in the western imagination. The episode is an eye-opening tale of how race served to rationalize, even justify, American social inequalities as “natural.”

    Episode 3– The House We Live [transcript] In asks, If race is not biology, what is it? This episode uncovers how race resides not in nature but in politics, economics and culture. It reveals how our social institutions “make” race by disproportionately channeling resources, power, status and wealth to white people.

    By asking, What is this thing called ‘race’?, a question so basic it is rarely asked, Race – The Power of an Illusion helps set the terms that any further discussion of race must first take into account. Ideal for human biology, anthropology, sociology, American studies, and cultural studies.

    Read the online transcript here.
    Visit the facilitator guide website here.

  • Race and Reification in Science

    Race and Reification in Science

    Science Magazine
    Volume 307
    2005-02-18
    pages 1050-1051

    Troy Duster, Professor of Sociology
    New York University

    Alfred North Whitehead warned many years ago about “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness” (1), by which he meant the tendency to assume that categories of thought coincide with the obdurate character of the empirical world. If we think of a shoe as “really a shoe,” then we are not likely to use it as a hammer (when no hammer is around). Whitehead’s insight about misplaced concreteness is also known as the fallacy of reification. Recent research in medicine and genetics makes it even more crucial to resist actively the temptation to deploy racial categories as if immutable in nature and society…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Race in a Genetic World

    Race in a Genetic World

    Harvard Magazine
    Volume 110, Number 5
    May-June 2008

    hosptial
    Duana Fullwiley
    Photograph by Stu Rosner

    “I am an African American,” says Duana Fullwiley, “but in parts of Africa, I am white.” To do fieldwork as a medical anthropologist in Senegal, she says, “I take a plane to France, a seven- to eight-hour ride. My race changes as I cross the Atlantic. There, I say, ‘Je suis noire,’ and they say, ‘Oh, okay—métisse—you are mixed.’ Then I fly another six to seven hours to Senegal, and I am white. In the space of a day, I can change from African American, to métisse, to tubaab [Wolof for “white/European”]. This is not a joke, or something to laugh at, or to take lightly. It is the kind of social recognition that even two-year-olds who can barely speak understand. ‘Tubaab,’ they say when they greet me.”

    Is race, then, purely a social construct? The fact that racial categories change from one society to another might suggest it is. But now, says Fullwiley, assistant professor of anthropology and of African and African American studies, genetic methods, with their precision and implied accuracy, are being used in the same way that physical appearance has historically been used: “to build—to literally construct—certain ideas about why race matters.”

    Genetic science has revolutionized biology and medicine, and even rewritten our understanding of human history. But the fact that human beings are 99.9 percent identical genetically, as Francis Collins and Craig Venter jointly announced at the White House on June 26, 2000, when the rough draft of the human genome was released, risks being lost, some scholars fear, in an emphasis on human genetic difference. Both in federally funded scientific research and in increasingly popular practice—such as ancestry testing, which often purports to prove or disprove membership in a particular race, group, or tribe—genetic testing has appeared to lend scientific credence to the idea that there is a biological basis for racial categories.

    In fact, “There is no genetic basis for race,” says Fullwiley, who has studied the ethical, legal, and social implications of the human genome project with sociologist Troy Duster at UC [University of California], Berkeley. She sometimes quotes Richard Lewontin, now professor of biology and Agassiz professor of zoology emeritus, who said much the same thing in 1972, when he discovered that of all human genetic variation (which we now know to be just 0.1 percent of all genetic material), 85 percent occurs within geographically distinct groups, while 15 percent or less occurs between them. The issue today, Fullwiley says, is that many scientists are mining that 15 percent in search of human differences by continent…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Pathways to Permanence for Black, Asian and Mixed Ethnicity Children: Delemmas, Decision-Making and Outcomes

    Pathways to Permanence for Black, Asian and Mixed Ethnicity Children: Delemmas, Decision-Making and Outcomes

    Research Brief
    DCSF-RBX-13-08
    October 2008
    8 pages

    Julie Selwyn
    Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies
    University of Bristol

    P. Harris
    Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies
    University of Bristol

    David Quinton
    Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies
    University of Bristol

    S. Nawaz
    Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies
    University of Bristol

    Dinithi Wijedasa
    Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies
    University of Bristol

    Marsha Wood
    Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies
    University of Bristol

    Recent research reviews stress the lack of information on permanency planning and pathways to permanence for black and minority ethnic (BME) children. Even basic data are missing and there are no available comparisons between children of different ethnicities. Delays differentially affect and disadvantage children of minority ethnic heritage but, beyond speculation, there are no data on the processes that underlie delays for them.

    In this study differential planning and decision-making affecting the progress of BME children towards permanence will be compared retrospectively from case files with that of non-BME children over a two-year period in a sample of approximately 106 children looked-after continuously for over one year in three local authorities with high and contrasting BME populations. Progress towards permanence following a recent or current best-interests recommendation will also be tracked prospectively in a separate sample of approximately 200 BME children. For fifty of these, decision-making will be followed in real-time. Case-file data and interviews with social workers and their managers will be used. The outcomes for children of black, Asian and mixed heritages will be compared.

    There will be two additional outputs: a conceptual and research review of matching – a likely key element in delay and differential pathways-; and a scoping review of current practice models for the recruitment and support of BME parents for BME children for whom permanence is the aim.

    This study will provide essential new information relevant to the policy objectives of increasing the use of adoption as a permanency solution for children unlikely to return to their own families and reducing the delays in this process. With respect to the brief for this initiative, the study will:

    • Investigate whether looked-after BME children are less likely to be placed for adoption and why they may wait longer for placement
    • Examine the process affecting successful placement for them.
    • Compare the placement pathways of Black, Asian and mixed parentage children.
    • Compare three authorities will high but different BME populations.
    • Examine how the government’s attempts to increase the use of adoption are being translated into practice with respect to BME children.
    • Examine how social workers are applying the principles underlying adoption reform.
    • Identify good practice models for the recruitment and support of BME adopters.

    Read the entire paper here.

  • Vulnerable Multiracial Families and Early Years Services: Concerns, Challenges and Opportunities

    Vulnerable Multiracial Families and Early Years Services: Concerns, Challenges and Opportunities

    Children & Society
    Volume 10, Issue 4 (December 1996)
    Pages 305 – 316
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1099-0860.1996.tb00598.x

    Margaret Boushel
    Department of Social Work and Social Care
    University of Sussex

    In Britain, very young mixed-parentage children are more likely to receive state care than any other children. However, despite a dramatic increase in the number of multiracial families, their experiences have received little research attention. This article reviews the research on the experiences of vulnerable and poor multiracial families. Three areas of concern emerge—the relationship between family structure, locality and racism, disadvantage and oppression; the impact on family life of structurally reinforced and culturally defined gender roles; and the strengths and limitations of current early years research and practice. Suggestions are made about ways in which early years professionals might develop their practice with young vulnerable multiracial families.

    Read or purchase the article here.

  • Building Kinship and Community: Relational Processes of Bicultural Identity Among Adult Multiracial Adoptees

    Building Kinship and Community: Relational Processes of Bicultural Identity Among Adult Multiracial Adoptees

    Family Process
    Volume 49, Issue 1 (March 2010)
    pages 26-42
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1545-5300.2010.01306.x

    Gina Miranda Samuels, Associate Professor
    School of Social Service Administration
    University of Chicago

    This study uses the case of transracially adopted multiracial adults to highlight an alternative family context and thus process of African American enculturation. Interpretive analyses of interviews with 25 adult multiracial adoptees produced 4 patterns in their bicultural identity formation: (1) claiming whiteness culturally but not racially, (2) learning to “be Black”—peers as agents of enculturation, (3) biological pathways to authentic Black kinship, and (4) bicultural kinship beyond Black and White. Conceptualizing race as an ascribed extended kinship network and using notions of “groundedness” from bicultural identity literature, the relational aspects of participants’ identity development are highlighted. Culturally relevant concepts of bicultural identity are proposed for practice with multiracial adoptees who have multiple cultures of origin and for whom White mainstream culture is transmitted intrafamilially as a first culture.

    Read the entire article here.

  • Deconstructing Binary Race and Sex Categories: A Comparison of the Multiracial and Transgendered Experience

    Deconstructing Binary Race and Sex Categories: A Comparison of the Multiracial and Transgendered Experience

    San Diego Law Review
    Volume 39, Number 3 (2002)
    pages 917-942

    Julie A. Greenberg, Professor of Law
    Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego

    This Article explores the potential difficulties that exist as legal institutions develop a classification of transgendered people, and suggests that an examination of how legal institutions have classified race and sex in the past can help shape the way that legal institutions shape transgendered classifications in the future. The article summarizes the development of race classifications for multiracial people. The author then examines the development of sex classifications for various legal purposes like marriage, identity, and the right to pursue discrimination claims. The author also examines how the medical community contributes to the stereotypical definitions of sex as binary and biologically determinable. The author then proceeds to evaluate some of the challenges that face the development of multiracial classifications, and how those challenges may affect the development of transgendered classifications. The author argues that in developing sex classification systems, legal institutions should be aware of the problems that can arise when seeking to adopt a single unified standard for determining sex, because where in some instances the acceptance of sex as a sociopolitical construct can promote greater acceptance of sexual minorities, it might also further contribute to discrimination.

    Read the entire article here.

  • Beyond Just Black and White: Why I was so eager to claim my biracial son for my own side

    Beyond Just Black and White: Why I was so eager to claim my biracial son for my own side

    Newsweek.com
    2009-01-24

    Raina Kelley, Weekly Columnist

    When I took my newly born son from the nurse’s arms, I did the expected counting of his fingers and toes. I checked under his cap for hair and flexed his little limbs. Once confident he was whole and healthy, I began to wonder how dark his skin would get. As a black woman married to one of the world’s fairest men, I worried that our son would be so light-skinned as to appear Caucasian, and I wanted him to look black…

    Read the entire article here.

  • The End of Black History: A Postscript to My Son

    The End of Black History: A Postscript to My Son

    Newsweek.com
    2010-02-28
    00:13:57

    Raina Kelley, Weekly Columnist

    In trying to understand what black history will mean to my son when he’s old enough to wonder, I went in search of the purpose of Black History Month. (Video: Raina Kelly, Jon Groat; Additional material courtesy Angelique Kidjo, Penn Museum)

  • Marcia Dawkins to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

    Marcia Dawkins 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: #153 – Marcia Dawkins
    When: Wednesday, 2010-05-19 22:00Z (18:00 EDT, 15:00 PDT)

    Marcia Alesan Dawkins, Assistant Professor of Human Communication
    California State University, Fullerton

    Marcia Alesan Dawkins, Ph.D., is a blogger, professor and communication researcher in Los Angeles. Her interests are mixed race identification, politics, popular culture and new media. Her new book, Clearly Invisible:  Racial Passing and the Color of Cultural Identity, looks at racial passing as a viable form of communication. She lectures and consults on these issues at conferences worldwide.