Mixed Race Studies

The Problem Isn’t White People — It’s Whiteness, People

Tim Wise
2021-07-12

Tim Wise

Photo by the author (on location), Rage Against the Machine/The Umma Chroma video shoot, Watertown, TN. 10/17/20

Anti-racists aren’t trying to make anyone feel bad. It’s called a systemic analysis for a reason

Amid the backlash to anti-racist teaching and activism — symbolized by the assault on Critical Race Theory — one claim stands out as the principal lamentation of aggrieved conservatives. Namely, the idea that anti-racist educators and activists believe white people are inherently racist and oppressive.

You’ll hear it time and again. Those challenging anti-racist curricula insist their children are suffering psychological harm because the materials teach white kids to hate themselves. One parent in Tennessee even has a Go Fund Me to pay for counseling she says her 7-year-old needs after being exposed to in-depth discussions of the Civil War and the misdeeds of white Americans…

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The new one-drop rule: challenging the persistence of white supremacy with in-service teachers

Teaching Education
Volume 29, 2018 – Issue 4: What is To Be Done with Curriculum and Educational Foundations’ Critical Knowledges? New Qualitative Research on Conscientizing Preservice and In-Service Teachers
pages 330-342
DOI: 10.1080/10476210.2018.1505841

Benjamin Blaisdell, Assistant Professor
College of Education
East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina

The one-drop rule refers to the process of being racialized Black when someone contains any amount of Black ancestry, i.e. one drop of Black blood. In this article, I use what I call ‘the new one-drop rule’ to explain how even the smallest presence of white discourse can disrupt racial equity work in schools. Based on a critical race study in a racially desegregated elementary school, I illustrate how one drop of white discourse from even one less racially literate white teacher can cause usually more racially literate white teachers to support white supremacy. I also share how collaborative research utilizing critical race theory (CRT) can help schools build greater racial literacy and resist white discourse. I argue that critical research on race with in-service teachers should not forefront the consciousness-raising of resistant white teachers but rather center the wants, needs, and racial knowledge of racially literate teachers and especially teachers of color.

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The Globalization of Light Skin Colorism: From Critical Race to Critical Skin Theory

American Behavioral Scientist
Volume: 62 issue: 14 (The Implications of Colorism vis-à-vis Demographic Variation in a New Millennium)
DOI: 10.1177/0002764218810755
pages 2133–2145

Ronald E. Hall, Professor of Social Work
Michigan State University

On the cusp of Western civilization, Caucasians aspired to a racial world order defining Caucasian as superior race status. Today, racial diversity is a societal theme facilitated by laws, which deems racial equality a right and racial discrimination illegal. Nevertheless, by globalization, a racial world order exists by locating light skin at the zenith of humanity. As pertains to the globalization of light skin, culture and social criteria are most significant considering the demands of a racist racial hierarchy. The existence of such a hierarchy by replacing racism with colorism then necessitates moving beyond race category. Critical race theory (CRT) per light skin as new world order must defer to critical skin theory (CST). Colorism per CST operates identical in manner to racism per CRT. CST must then be elevated to priority over CRT such that the future of humanity may be rescued from the tenacious transgressions of a racist societal past.

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Perpetual Suspects: A Critical Race Theory of Black and Mixed-Race Experiences of Policing

Palgrave Macmillan
2018
231 pages
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-98239-7
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-98240-3
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-98240-3

Lisa J. Long, Senior Lecturer in Criminology
Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, United Kingdom

• Provides a new, theoretical, intersectional and critical framework of race and policing
• Presents a powerful account on the continuing entrenchment of racialised policing in the UK
• Forwards thinking in the current, highly contested set of debates surrounding this issue

Grounded in Critical Race Theory (CRT), this book examines black and mixed-race men and women’s experiences of policing in the UK. Through an intersectional analysis of race, class and gender it analyses the construction of the suspect, illuminating the ways in which race and racism(s) shape police contact. This counter-story to the dominant narrative challenges the erasure of race through the contemporary ‘diversity’ agenda. Overall, this book proposes that making racism visible can disrupt power structures and make change possible. It makes a timely contribution to this significantly under-researched area and will be of interest to students, educators and scholars of Criminology, Social Sciences, Law and Humanities. It will also be of interest to criminal justice practitioners, communities and activists.

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Racialisation and Criminalisation of ‘Blackness’
• Policing the Racialised Other
• ‘Babylon Remove the Chain, Now They’re Using the Brain’: Race and the Perpetual Suspect
• The (Un)Victim of Crime: Racialised Victims and the Police
• Gendered Experiences of Racialised Policing
• Race, Class and Belonging
• A Critical Race Theory of Racialised Policing?

Color Crit: Critical Race Theory and the History and Future of Colorism in the United States

Journal of Black Studies
First Published 2018-10-16
23 pages
DOI: 10.1177/0021934718803735

Robert L. Reece, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Texas, Austin

Critical race theory teaches that racism and racial inequality are constants in American society that stand outside of the prejudices of individuals. It argues that structures and institutions are primarily responsible for the maintenance of racial inequality. However, critical race theorists have neglected to formally examine and theorize colorism, a primary offshoot of racial domination. Although studies of colorism have become increasingly common, they lack a unifying theoretical framework, opting to lean on ideas about prejudice and preference to explain the advantages lighter skinned, Black Americans are afforded relative to darker skinned Black Americans. In this study, I deploy a critical race framework to push back against preference as the only, or primary, mechanism facilitating skin tone stratification. Instead, I use historical Census data and regression analysis to explore the historical role of color-based marriage selection on concentrating economic advantage among lighter skinned Black Americans. I then discuss the policy and legal implications of developing a structural view of colorism and skin tone stratification in the United States and the broader implications for how we conceptualize race in this country.

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Japan’s Under-Researched Visible Minorities: Applying Critical Race Theory to Racialization Dynamics in a Non-White Society

Washington University Global Studies Law Review
Volume 14, Issue 4: Global Perspectives on Colorism (Symposium Edition) (2015)
pages 695-723

Debito Arudou

Critical Race Theory (CRT), an analytical framework grounded in American legal academia, uncovers power relationships between a racialized enfranchised majority and a disenfranchised minority. Although applied primarily to countries and societies with Caucasian majorities to analyze White Privilege this Article applies CRT to Japan, a non-White majority society. After discussing how scholarship on Japan has hitherto ignored a fundamental factor within racialization studies—the effects of skin color on the concept of “Japaneseness”—this Article examines an example of published research on the Post-WWII “konketsuji problem.” This research finds blind spots in the analysis, and re-examines it through CRT to uncover more nuanced power dynamics. This exercise attempts to illustrate the universality of nation-state racialization processes, and advocates the expansion of Whiteness Studies beyond Caucasian-majority societies into worldwide Colorism dynamics in general.

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What are you? A CRT perspective on the experiences of mixed race persons in ‘post-racial’ America

Race Ethnicity and Education
Volume 18, Issue 1, 2015
pages 1-19
DOI: 10.1080/13613324.2014.911160

Celia Rousseau Anderson, Associate Professor in the Secondary Education Program
Department of Instruction and Curriculum Leadership
University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee

In this article, the author employs Critical Race Theory (CRT) to examine the experiences of mixed race individuals in the United States. Drawing on historical and contemporary conditions involving persons of mixed race, the author considers how key ideas from CRT can be useful to frame an analysis of the experiences of multiracial persons in the US. To supplement the analysis, the author also includes fictionalized narratives in the tradition of CRT. In conclusion, the author considers how this examination of mixed race persons might inform K-12 education.

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Toward a critical multiracial theory in education

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education
Volume 29, Issue 6, 2016
pages 795-813
DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2016.1162870

Jessica C. Harris, Multi-Term Lecturer
Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
University of Kansas

This manuscript lays the foundation for a critical multiracial theory (MultiCrit) in education. The author uses extant literature and their own research that focused on multiraciality on the college campus to explore how CRT can move toward MultiCrit, which is well-positioned to frame multiracial students’ experiences with race in education.

Read or purchase the article here.