Mixed Race Studies

Black and biracial Americans wouldn’t need to code-switch if we lived in a post-racial society

The Conversation
2018-08-17

Chandra D. L. Waring, ​Assistant Professor of Sociology and Race and Ethnic Studies
University of Wisconsin, Whitewater

For black and biracial Americans, the pressures to adapt to a dominant white culture – and surrender their unique sense of self – can be suffocating. Gumenyuk Dmitriy/Shutterstock.com

Boots Riley’s new film “Sorry to Bother You” does anything but apologize.

In telling the story of Cassius, a young black man who becomes an extraordinarily successful telemarketer after he starts using his “white voice,” it showcases the magnitude of racial and class oppression.

Colloquially, Cassius’ use of a “white voice” is known as code-switching, and the film highlights something that most African-Americans could probably tell you: The ability to code-switch is often a prerequisite to becoming a successful black person in America.

As a race scholar and sociologist, I’ve studied biracial Americans who engage in code-switching. I found that the ability to deftly code-switch has some real advantages. But it also has its fair share of pitfalls.

More broadly, it has led me to wonder what the persistence of code-switching tells us about race, opportunities and making connections in America today…

Read the entire article here.

“IT’S LIKE WE HAVE AN ‘IN’ ALREADY”: The Racial Capital of Black/White Biracial Americans

Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race
Published online: 2016-12-19
DOI: 10.1017/S1742058X16000357

Chandra D. L. Waring, Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology, Criminology and Anthropology
University of Wisconsin, Whitewater

The increasing bi/multiracial¹ community in the United States has generated much literature about racial identity and social psychological well-being. Drawing on sixty in-depth interviews with Black/White biracial Americans, this paper shifts the theoretical focus from identity and well-being to the conceptual development of how race shapes bi/multiracial Americans’ social interactions with both Whites and Blacks. The majority of participants reported interacting differently when in predominately White settings versus predominately Black settings. I offer the concept of “racial capital” to highlight the repertoire of racial resources (knowledge, experiences, meaning, and language) that biracial Americans use to negotiate racial boundaries in a highly racialized society. These findings reveal the continuing significance of racial boundaries in a population that is often celebrated as evidence of racial harmony in the United States.

Read or purchase the article here.

Beyond “Code-switching:” The Racial Capital of Black/White Biracial Americans

University of Connecticut
2013
170 pages

Chandra D. L. Waring

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Social science has examined the experiences of the burgeoning bi/multiracial population within the scope of three core areas: racial identity (Funderburg 1994; Kilson 2001; Rockquemore and Brunsma 2008; Renn 2004; Root 1996), social psychological well-being (Bracey et al. 2004; Campbell and Eggerling-Boek 2006; Cheng and Lively 2010; Binning et al. 2009) and family racial socialization (DaCosta 2007; Dalmage 2000; Samuels 2009; Socha and Diggs 1999; Twine 2010). In my dissertation, I shift the theoretical focus from identity and well-being to the conceptual development of how race—embedded with assumptions, understandings and histories—shapes bi/multiracial Americans’ everyday social interactions with white and black Americans. Through 60 in-depth, semi-structured, life story interviews, I found that the majority of my participants reported interacting differently during encounters with whites and blacks or when in predominately white settings versus predominately black settings as a means to establish racial in-group membership. In an effort to analyze these interactional patterns, I offer the concept of “racial capital” to call attention to the repertoire of racial resources (i.e. knowledge, experiences, meaning and language) that biracial Americans draw upon to negotiate racial boundaries in a highly racialized society. While past research on bi/multiracials has created conceptual frameworks for racial identity trends as well as social psychological development, these studies have not systematically considered how everyday interactions unfold, and how bi/multiracials draw upon a unique racialized “tool kit” (Swidler 1986) to work within and around racial boundaries. Furthermore, while racism scholars have discussed the negotiation of racial boundaries for other populations that do not neatly fit into racial categories, such as second generation South Asian Americans (Purkayastha 2005), these processes have not been systematically addressed in the bi/multiracial population. Through the narratives of my respondents, I fill this gap in the literature.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Chapter 1: Introduction: Why Study Biracials?
• Chapter 2: Methodological Considerations
• Chapter 3: Made in America: Interracial Sexuality and Bi/multiracial Children
• Chapter 4: Race and Resemblance: Exploring Relationships in Multiracial Families
• Chapter 5: “It’s Like We Have an ‘In’ Already:” The Racial Capital of Biracial Americans
• Chapter 6: “I’m a Different Kind of Biracial:” Biracial Americans with Immigrant Parents Negotiate Race in the United States
• Chapter 7: “I’m Exotic and That Intrigues Them:” Gender, Sexuality and the Racially Ambiguous Body
• Chapter 8: Conclusions, Implications and Suggestions
• Appendix: Interview Guide
• References

Read the entire dissertation here.