Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • Hybrid Identities: Theoretical and Empirical Examinations

    Hybrid Identities: Theoretical and Empirical Examinations

    Haymarket Books
    2009
    412 pages
    Paperback ISBN: 9781608460359

    Edited by:

    Keri E. Iyall Smith, Associate Professor of Sociology
    Suffolk University, Boston

    Patricia Leavy

    Combining theoretical and empirical pieces, this book explores the emerging theoretical work seeking to describe hybrid identities while also illustrating the application of these theories in empirical research.The sociological perspective of this volume sets it apart. Hybrid identities continue to be predominant in minority or immigrant communities, but these are not the only sites of hybridity in the globalized world. Given a compressed world and a constrained state, identities for all individuals and collective selves are becoming more complex. The hybrid identity allows for the perpetuation of the local, in the context of the global. This book presents studies of types of hybrid identities: transnational, double consciousness, gender, diaspora, the third space, and the internal colony.

  • Dolezal Controversy Sharpens Focus on Racial Identity

    Dolezal Controversy Sharpens Focus on Racial Identity

    University of Massachusetts Press
    2015-06-26

    The recent controversy concerning Rachel Dolezal’s racial identity steered many readers to a 2008 UMass Press book by Baz Dreisinger, Near Black: White-to-Black Passing in American Culture, which explores cases in which legally white individuals are imagined, by themselves or by others, as passing for black.

    Many news venues—the New York Times, CNN, LA Times, The Atlantic, and others—found their way to Dreisinger to ask her thoughts. The controversy, Dreisinger told the New York Times, “taps into all of these issues around blackface and wearing blackness and that whole cultural legacy, which makes it that much more vile.”

    In The Atlantic, Dreisinger said “I think it’s critical to recognize the ways in which American whites have a long legacy of fetishizing blackness, whether they’re literally passing or not, but the ways in which their notions of blackness are based upon caricatures, and not characters. They’re based on idealized or cartoonish notions of what blackness is.”…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Obama sharpens his message on race

    Obama sharpens his message on race

    The Hill
    Washington, D.C.
    2015-07-01

    Mike Lillis

    President Obama is taking a more aggressive approach to the issue of race, repeatedly offering sharp commentary as he confronts America’s oldest, deepest divide.

    Black lawmakers, Obama’s strongest allies on Capitol Hill, have cheered the president’s newfound willingness to address race head-on.

    But they also see a nation that’s still plagued by inequality, discrimination and, in some cases, overt racism — first black president or none…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Misty Copeland is first black dancer to lead US ballet group

    Misty Copeland is first black dancer to lead US ballet group

    BBC News
    2015-07-01


    Misty Copeland has become a breakout star for ballet

    The American Ballet Theatre has named Misty Copeland its principal dancer – the first time a black ballerina has held the prestigious role.

    Ms Copeland, 32, made her debut this month, starring in Swan Lake in New York, one of the most coveted roles in ballet.

    In recent years, Ms Copeland has found fame outside of the ballet world.

    She has appeared in commercials and TV shows and wrote a best-selling memoir.

    “We haven’t had a ballet dancer who has broken through to popular culture like this since Mikhail Baryshnikov,” said Wendy Perron, an author and former editor of Dance Magazine…

    Read the entire article here.

  • One thing we often forget about that case is that Homer Plessy’s argument was that he was white!

    One thing we often forget about that case is that Homer Plessy’s argument was that he was white! He got bounced from the white section because the conductor said he was black. The question wasn’t that all train passengers should be able to sit together, rather Plessy said, “No, I’m a white person, actually.” The court admitted that it was very important to be able to determine who was white and who was not, and that having the ability to be white is a form of property, that it’s valuable, extremely valuable, in 1896.

    Brian Jones, “The Social Construction of Race,” Jacobin, June 25, 2015. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/06/racecraft-racism-social-origins-reparations/.

  • These experiences led me to suspect that the breathless “post­racial” commentary that attached itself to our current president had as much to do with the fact that he is biracial as with the fact that he is black.

    My choice, if you can call it that, to identify as black is much different from that of, say, my father or even my own sister, whose skin is at least three shades darker than mine. The eagerness with which people gravitate toward me is not shown to many of the other black people I know. These experiences led me to suspect that the breathless “post­racial” commentary that attached itself to our current president had as much to do with the fact that he is biracial as with the fact that he is black. His blood relationship to whiteness and its attendant privileges serve as a chaser to the difficult-­to-­swallow prospect that a black man might achieve ownership of the Oval Office.

    Anna Holmes, “America’s ‘Postracial’ Fantasy,” The New York Times Magazine, June 30, 2015. page MM13. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/05/magazine/americas-postracial-fantasy.html.

  • The Social Construction of Race

    The Social Construction of Race

    Jacobin
    2015-06-25

    Brian Jones

    Race is a social fiction imposed by the powerful on those they wish to control.

    The first friend I ever had was a little boy named Matt. We were maybe four or five years old. Matt came to me one day with a very serious look on his face and gave me a little talking-to. He explained to me: “Brian, you’re brown. And I’m peach.”

    I don’t remember saying anything back, but I think in my mind I was like “Okay. . . ? Well these Legos aren’t going to build themselves.”

    Matt was trying to do me a favor. He was trying to introduce me to the very bizarre and peculiar rules that we all know as grownups — very important things to understand. If you didn’t understand them, you’d find American life and society very strange. You’d do things you shouldn’t do, go places you shouldn’t go. You’d mess up if you didn’t understand the particular rules that govern the ideology of race in the United States.

    Sometimes when you go outside of the American context you begin to appreciate how particular and unique these rules are. I remember reading about a (probably apocryphal) interview with the former dictator of Haiti, Papa Doc Duvalier, who referred to the “white majority population” of Haiti. The American journalist interviewing him didn’t understand, so they had to define to each other what makes somebody white or black. The American journalist explained that in the US, one metaphorical drop of black blood designates someone as black. And Duvalier replied, “Well, that’s our definition of white.”

    The whole idea of this talk — if you take away nothing else — is this: the whole thing is made up. That’s it. And you can make it up different ways; and people have and do. And it changes. And it has nothing to do with biology or genetics. There’s a study of several decades of census records that found that twice as many people who call themselves white have recent African ancestry as people who call themselves black.

    This is not just a matter of folksy beliefs, or prejudice, or wrong ideas, though those things are all in the mix. This is a matter of law…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Race in Rhode Island: Is race just an invention?

    Race in Rhode Island: Is race just an invention?

    The Providence Journal
    Providence, Rhode Island
    2015-06-27

    Paul Edward Parker

    Classifications were created to divide people, say educator, historian.

    When you ask “What is race?” don’t expect a simple answer.

    And, when you consider Latinos — Are they a race or an ethnicity? — plus America’s ever growing multiracial identity, that complicated answer grows even more complex.

    The apparently simple concept of race eludes easy definition, even though we have been counting people by race in Rhode Island as far back as 1774.

    The federal government took up the practice in 1790, the year that Rhode Island became the 13th and final original state to ratify the Constitution.

    Despite that long history of sorting people into racial categories, experts say it has little basis in science. It’s more about sociology and politics.

    “Race is not a biological construct. It’s a social construct,” said Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, a retired Rhode Island College professor who, for nearly 40 years, taught classes on the anthropology of racism. “There’s a belief that it’s scientific,” she added. “It’s impossible to classify humans scientifically into race.”…

    …What about Latino?

    Along with “What is race?” those who count Americans by categories have to ask: “Is Hispanic or Latino a race?”

    The Census Bureau has said no, Hispanic origin is in addition to race. Someone who identifies as Hispanic or Latino also will belong to one or more of the five racial groups.

    But two-thirds of American Latinos disagree, Lopez said. They have told Pew that Latino is part of their racial identity.

    “I’m not white, and I’m not black,” said Anna Cano Morales, director of the Latino Policy Institute at Roger Williams University in Providence. “I choose to be Latina.”

    But Morales concedes racial and ethnic identity is not simple. “This is an incredibly complex set of questions,” she said…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Hawaii is home to the nation’s largest share of multiracial Americans

    Hawaii is home to the nation’s largest share of multiracial Americans

    Pew Research Center
    2015-06-17

    Jens Manuel Krogstad, Writer/Editor, Hispanic Trends Project

    The number of multiracial Americans is growing nationwide, but in Hawaii, it’s nothing new. The Rainbow State – with its history of attracting immigrants from Asia and other parts of the world to work as farm laborers – stands far above the rest, with nearly one-in-four residents (24%) identifying as multiracial, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data. The next most-multiracial states are far behind: Alaska (8%) and Oklahoma (7%).

    Here’s another way to look at how much Hawaii stands out: In terms of total population, Hawaii is one of the smallest (1.4 million people), ranking 40th out of 50 states. But when ranking states with the highest total multiracial population, the state ranks sixth, with more than 330,000.

    A new Pew Research survey found that the number of multiracial Americans may be higher than the estimates from Census, which has estimated that 3% of the overall U.S. population – and 2.1% of the adult population – is multiracial. But taking into account how adults describe their own race as well as the racial backgrounds of their parents and grandparents – which the census does not do – Pew Research estimates that 6.9% of the U.S. adult population could be considered multiracial…

    Read the entire article here.

  • How a long-dead white supremacist still threatens the future of Virginia’s Indian tribes

    How a long-dead white supremacist still threatens the future of Virginia’s Indian tribes

    The Washington Post
    2015-07-01

    Joe Heim, Staff Writer


    Walter A. Plecker’s goal as Virginia’s registrar of vital statistics was to ban race-mixing. He declared there were no true Indians left because of marriages with blacks. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

    Virginia’s Indian tribes have faced numerous obstacles in their decades-old quest for federal recognition. But one person has long stood in their way — and he’s been dead for 68 years.

    Walter Plecker — a physician, eugenicist and avowed white supremacist — ran Virginia’s Bureau of Vital Statistics with single-minded resolve over 34 years in the first half of the 20th century.

    Though he died in 1947, Plecker’s shadow still lingers over the state, a vestige of a vicious era when racist practices were an integral part of government policy and Virginia officials ruthlessly enforced laws created to protect what they considered a master white race.

    For Virginia’s Indians, the policies championed by Plecker threatened their very existence, nearly wiping out the tribes who greeted the country’s first English settlers and who claim Pocahontas as an ancestor. This month, the legacy of those laws could again help sabotage an effort by the Pamunkey people to become the state’s first federally recognized tribe.

    Obsessed with the idea of white superiority, Plecker championed legislation that would codify the idea that people with one drop of “Negro” blood could not be classified as white. His efforts led the Virginia legislature to pass the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, a law that criminalized interracial marriage and also required that every birth in the state be recorded by race with the only options being “White” and “Colored.”

    Plecker was proud of the law and his role in creating it. It was, he said, “the most perfect expression of the white ideal, and the most important eugenical effort that has been made in 4,000 years.”

    The act didn’t just make blacks in Virginia second-class citizens — it also erased any acknowledgment of Indians, whom Plecker claimed no longer truly existed in the commonwealth. With a stroke of a pen, Virginia was on a path to eliminating the identity of the Pamunkey, the Mattaponi, the Chickahominy, the Monacan, the Rappahannock, the Nansemond and the rest of Virginia’s tribes…

    Read the entire article here.