Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • Passing for black? Now that’s a twist

    Passing for black? Now that’s a twist

    Cable News Network (CNN)
    2015-06-12

    Lisa Respers France, Senior producer, CNN Digital

    (CNN)—”In this day and age who in the world willingly wants to be black?”

    I jokingly said that to my husband when news about Rachel Dolezal broke.

    Dolezal, 37, is president of the Spokane, Washington, chapter of the NAACP whose racial identity is being questioned, now that her parents have produced what they say is her birth certificate. It appears to show that she is white.

    They said their daughter, who reportedly earned a master’s degree from the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C., and is a professor of Africana Studies at Eastern Washington University, began to “disguise herself” as black after the family adopted four African-American children.

    Don’t get me wrong, I am a proud black woman who grew up in a family that is incredibly diverse and has such a heritage of hues that my parents were once questioned in a store as to where they “got that white baby from,” as they carted around my fair-skinned and light-eyed infant nephew.

    But with all the heated debate over race relations and the treatment of minorities by law enforcement, which has resulted in unrest and more than a few black mothers burying their sons and daughters, I was both flabbergasted and intrigued by any claim that a white woman would willingly pass as black.

    Race isn’t necessarily skin color

    The concept of “passing” is something many African-Americans are familiar with. Some members of my own family were so light-skinned, with European features, that they willingly chose to live as white rather than deal with the discrimination of being black in America.

    My mother, Patricia, who is fair and has greenish-gray eyes, tells the story of when her grandmother arrived at the bank where my mother worked after it closed. My biracial great-grandmother, Rose Evans, knocked on the window as my mother stood next to her white co-worker, counting out their drawer.

    “There’s a woman trying to get your attention,” the co-worker told my mother.

    When my mother responded “I know. That’s just my grandmother,” the co-worker continued: “No. There’s a white woman trying to get your attention.” “No. That’s my grandmother,” my mother repeated as her co-worker turned bright red with embarrassment.

    The truth of the matter is that when it comes to race, you just can’t tell from looking…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Rachel Dolezal has a right to be black

    Rachel Dolezal has a right to be black

    Cable News Network (CNN)
    2016-06-16

    Camile Gear Rich, Professor of Law and Sociology
    Gould School of Law
    University of Southern California

    (CNN)—When it comes to identity, America takes one step forward and two steps back.

    On Monday, Rachel Dolezal, the head of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, resigned in shame because she had posed as a black woman even though she is biologically white.

    The outing of Dolezal seems ironic given the recent public embrace of Caitlyn Jenner, the transgender woman formerly known as Bruce Jenner. Jenner seems to have ushered in an era of greater tolerance about the constructed nature of identity. After all, when a transgender woman is elevated to the cover of Vanity Fair, it’s as though we have reached a tipping point. We can accept the idea that one’s social identity can be radically transformed if it doesn’t match with what one feels in the heart…

    …In my view, hate the sin but love the sinner. Dolezal lied. She should not have lied, but she lied for reasons with which we can sympathize.

    I admire the way she chose to live her life as a black person. Advocating for anti-racism efforts is ethical and admirable if she wanted to claim blackness as a social identity. Those quick to throw stones well know that there are costs to living life as a black person, and once Dolezal made the switch she seems never to have looked back. I will not indict her for her choice to link herself to this community, and I would consider her claim no greater if she identified a long lost African ancestor…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Black Mexicans face considerable hurdles

    Black Mexicans face considerable hurdles

    Compton Herald
    2015-06-05

    Alexis Okeowo

    Mexicanos negros (black Mexicans) face considerable hurdles; Afro-Mexicans are marginalized and excluded to the point that it is impossible to find any mention of them in official records

    The first town of freed African slaves in the Americas is not exactly where you would expect to find it — and it isn’t exactly what you’d expect to find either. First, it’s not in the United States. Yanga, on Mexico’s Gulf Coast, is a sleepy pueblito founded by its namesake, Gaspar Yanga, an African slave who led a rebellion against his Spanish colonial masters in the late 16th century and fought off attempts to retake the settlement. The second thing that is immediately evident to vistors who reach the town’s rustic central plaza: there are virtually no blacks among the few hundred residents milling around the center of town.

    Mirroring Mexico’s history itself, most of Yanga’s Afro-Mexican population has been pushed to neighboring rural villages that are notable primarily for their deep poverty and the strikingly dark skin of their inhabitants. Mexico’s independence from Spain and new focus on building a national identity on the idea of mestizaje, or mixed race, drove African Mexicans into invisibility as leaders chose not to count them or assess their needs. Now many blacks want to fight back by improving the shoddy education and social services available to them and are petitioning for the constitution to recognize Afro-Mexicans as a separate ethnic group worthy of special consideration…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Is being Hispanic a matter of race, ethnicity or both?

    Is being Hispanic a matter of race, ethnicity or both?

    Pew Research Center
    2015-06-15

    Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, Research Associate

    Mark Hugo Lopez, Director of Hispanic Research

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    When it comes to reporting their racial identity, Latinos stand out from other Americans. In the 2010 census, for example, 94% of the U.S. population selected at least one of the five standard, government-defined racial categories – white, black, Asian, American Indian or Pacific Islander. But among Latinos, just 63% selected at least one of these categories; 37% of Latinos, or 19 million, instead selected only “some other race,” with many offering write-in responses such as “Mexican,” Hispanic” or “Latin American.”

    Federal policy defines “Hispanic” not as a race, but as an ethnicity. And it prescribes that Hispanics can in fact be of any race. But these census findings suggest that standard U.S. racial categories might either be confusing or not provide relevant options for Hispanics to describe their racial identity. They also raise an important question long pondered by social scientists and policymakers: Do Hispanics consider their Hispanic background to be part of their racial background, their ethnic background or both?…

    Read the entire article here.

  • ‘We Are Not Alone’: Festival Celebrates Multiracial America

    ‘We Are Not Alone’: Festival Celebrates Multiracial America

    NBC News
    2015-06-12

    Frances Kai-Hwa Wang

    Nearly 700 people from across the country—including artists, writers, comedians, musicians, multiracial and multicultural families—are expected to gather at the Mixed Remixed Festival on June 13 at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, to celebrate the stories and lives of multiracial people and families…

    Read the entire article here.

  • The “one-drop rule,” which, for much of American history, legally defined as black anyone with a black ancestor, was used to keep black people from adopting whiteness. Ironically, it has made it easier for Ms. Dolezal to claim blackness without others questioning the assertion.

    The “one-drop rule,” which, for much of American history, legally defined as black anyone with a black ancestor, was used to keep black people from adopting whiteness. Ironically, it has made it easier for Ms. [Rachel] Dolezal to claim blackness without others questioning the assertion. If they are not themselves of a similar hue to Ms. Dolezal, many black people watching her story unfold can recognize in her features a cousin, parent or grandparent. African-Americans vary in appearance from light-skinned to coal black, straight- to curly-haired, keen- to broad-featured, and every possible combination in between.

    Tamara Winfrey Harris, “Rachel Dolezal’s Harmful Masquerade,” The New York Times, June 16, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/opinion/rachel-dolezals-harmful-masquerade.html.

  • How Fluid Is Racial Identity?

    How Fluid Is Racial Identity?

    Room for Debate
    The New York Times
    2015-06-17

    Heidi W. Durrow, Novelist

    Amanda Kay Erekson, President
    MAVIN

    Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Charles M. and Marion J. Kierscht Professor of Law
    University of Iowa

    Nancy Leong, Associate Professor of Law
    University of Denver

    Mark Hugo Lopez, Director of Hispanic Research
    Pew Research Center

    Kevin Noble Maillard, Professor of Law
    Syracuse University

    It’s been a busy month for exploring boundaries of identity. Should Emma Stone play an Asian character in the movie “Hawaii?” Is Caitlyn Jenner a “real” woman? Did Rachel Dolezal commit racial fraud? The chatter accompanying these examples underscores a fundamental suspicion of personal ambiguity.

    Meanwhile, multiracial couplings and births are at an all time high. People may view themselves as multiracial, monoracial or they change their identity over time. How fluid is racial identity, and where will we be in 50 years?

    Read the discussion here.

  • Since the publication of my second book One Drop, I have heard from hundreds of people who similarly discovered later in life a previously unknown ancestry, some of whom have had their sense of themselves changed, seemingly overnight, as a result.

    Since the publication of my second book One Drop, I have heard from hundreds of people who similarly discovered later in life a previously unknown ancestry, some of whom have had their sense of themselves changed, seemingly overnight, as a result. Sometimes the revelation came as the result of a DNA test, which was then corroborated with some genealogical research. Other times, the discovery of a “MU” (Mulatto) or “B” (Black) on a grandparent’s or great grandparent’s census record had uncovered the truth. With cheaper genetic testing and more and more genealogical records easily searchable online, the number of people discovering they are not what they thought they were will only continue to increase.

    Bliss Broyard, “Rachel Dolezal isn’t alone – my family history proves choosing a racial definition is hard,” The Guardian, June 15, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/15/bliss-broyard-father-black-roots-race-ethnicity-rachel-dolezal.

  • Rachel Dolezal’s Harmful Masquerade

    Rachel Dolezal’s Harmful Masquerade

    The New York Times
    2015-06-16

    Tamara Winfrey Harris

    Rachel A. Dolezal, who stepped down Monday as president of the Spokane, Wash., chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., could have been a powerful ally to African-Americans. The participation of white allies has always been important to anti-racism work. By most accounts, she is educated about black cultures and an advocate for black causes. But empathy evolved into impersonation. And Ms. Dolezal’s subterfuge, made easier by the legacy of racism in America, undermines the very people she claims to support.

    “I identify as black,” Ms. Dolezal told Matt Lauer on the “Today” show this morning. That may be. But actual black people, like me, don’t have the option of choosing…

    …Some people have pointed to this strange case as an illustration that race is malleable. I submit that Ms. Dolezal is a reminder that it is not. Racial identity cannot be fluid as long as the definition of whiteness is fixed. And historically, the path to whiteness has been extremely narrow.

    The “one-drop rule,” which, for much of American history, legally defined as black anyone with a black ancestor, was used to keep black people from adopting whiteness. Ironically, it has made it easier for Ms. Dolezal to claim blackness without others questioning the assertion. If they are not themselves of a similar hue to Ms. Dolezal, many black people watching her story unfold can recognize in her features a cousin, parent or grandparent. African-Americans vary in appearance from light-skinned to coal black, straight- to curly-haired, keen- to broad-featured, and every possible combination in between.

    This diversity is partly a result of this one-drop rule. The original intent of it was to protect racial privilege. Sometimes, if their appearance borrowed enough from white ancestors, black Americans could “pass” in white society. But that social sleight of hand came with many dangers, such as the chance that black lineage would be outed in the skin or hair of one’s progeny. Segregation simply would not work if society was fuzzy on who got the nice drinking fountain, the front seat on the bus and the right to vote…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Rachel Dolezal isn’t alone – my family history proves choosing a racial definition is hard

    Rachel Dolezal isn’t alone – my family history proves choosing a racial definition is hard

    The Guardian
    Monday, 2015-06-15

    Bliss Broyard

    Bliss Broyard’s father kept his black roots a secret his whole life. Her journey of self-discovery led her to the understanding that believing the results of a DNA cheek swab to be more meaningful than one’s experiences is a ridiculous notion

    How do you determine who is black? Is it simply a matter of inheritance – you are what your parents are? Does having a black grandparent make a person black? Must she have been raised as black, in a black community? Is one black ancestor, one drop of blood, enough?

    These were the kinds of questions asked during the legal trials undertaken in the late 19th and early 20th century throughout southern and midwestern US states, to determine a person’s “true” racial identity. Then, as now, ancestry trumped lived experience. In Ohio the courts ruled that having 50% black ancestry, a single black parent or two mixed parents, made a person black – and hence socially and politically inferior – while in Louisiana, the “one drop” rule prevailed, and any traceable amount of Negro ancestry denied one certain legal rights, including the right to vote and the right to marry a person of another race…

    Read the entire article here.