Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

As this chapter will argue, soon after Anglo Texas’ separation from Mexico in the 1835-1836 revolution, white elites created a society rooted in the absolute legal separation of the white and black worlds. In order to prevent the development of a mulatto population that might inherit the political and economic wealth of the racial ruling class, white leaders promulgated harsh legal penalties in the 1840s and 1850s attached to blackness. Blacks faced slavery, the death penalty for many crimes punished less severely for whites, and laws defining the offspring of mixed-race parents as enslaved bastards ineligible for inheritance. Whiteness was defined simply as the absence of blackness, Indian blood, or other racial “pollution,” although many who were socially accepted as white had been polluted in this manner. Elites hoped that the social superiority all whites ostensibly enjoyed over blacks ameliorated disparities of power and wealth within the white community.

To the dismay of elites, however, frequently severe weather and a cash-strapped economy made life insecure for the non-slaveholding majority. In Dallas, divisions developed along economic and regional lines, leading to outbursts of violence that disturbed elite confidence and security. When a fire destroyed downtown Dallas in 1860, elite suspicions settled on white abolitionists born outside the South. The violence of 1860 created the terrain on which postwar racial ideology developed. Elites labeled those opposed to their notions of race and class hierarchy as uncivilized and therefore not fully white. After Reconstruction, the city leadership embraced a more fluid concept of race in which white status could be gained or lost based on acceptance of elite social norms. This more flexible definition of whiteness, which held dissent in check, shaped Dallas politics for more than 130 years afterward.

Michael Phillips, White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007), 1. The Music of Cracking Necks: Dallas Civilization and Its Discontents.

SO 3300: ‘Race’and ‘Mixed Race’

Posted in Caribbean/Latin America, Course Offerings, History, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2012-06-09 02:57Z by Steven

SO 3300: ‘Race’and ‘Mixed Race’

Forham University
Spring 2010

The origins of ‘race,’its historic role and social construction are examined. Ancient and modern-day ideas are explored. Contrasts between the United States and Latin American concepts of ‘race’ and ‘mixed race’ are analyzed. Future implications are discussed.

Tags: Forham University

Comments Off on SO 3300: ‘Race’and ‘Mixed Race’

Pages
Categories
- Africa (404)
- Anthologies (294)
- Anthropology (1,163)
- Articles (8,697)
- Arts (1,264)
- Asian Diaspora (1,416)
- Audio (466)
- Autobiography (1,060)
- Barack Obama (717)
- Biography (1,043)
- Book/Video Reviews (734)
- Books (2,104)
- Brazil (514)
- Campus Life (462)
- Canada (468)
- Caribbean/Latin America (1,403)
- Census/Demographics (1,072)
- Chapter (45)
- Communications/Media Studies (487)
- Course Offerings (158)
- Definitions (43)
- Dissertations (446)
- Economics (112)
- Europe (548)
- Excerpts/Quotes (947)
- Family/Parenting (620)
- Forthcoming Media (57)
- Gay & Lesbian (167)
- Health/Medicine/Genetics (764)
- History (3,431)
- Identity Development/Psychology (2,112)
- Interviews (694)
- Judaism (191)
- Latino Studies (496)
- Law (947)
- Letters (11)
- Literary/Artistic Criticism (1,467)
- Live Events (662)
- Louisiana (247)
- Media Archive (12,304)
- Mexico (235)
- Mississippi (80)
- Monographs (1,445)
- My Articles/Point of View/Activities (52)
- Native Americans/First Nation (671)
- New Media (451)
- Novels (249)
- Oceania (212)
- Papers/Presentations (233)
- Passing (1,238)
- Philosophy (202)
- Poetry (95)
- Politics/Public Policy (1,802)
- Religion (489)
- Reports (64)
- Slavery (795)
- Social Justice (342)
- Social Science (2,991)
- Social Work (194)
- South Africa (138)
- Statements (9)
- Teaching Resources (136)
- Texas (65)
- Tri-Racial Isolates (100)
- United Kingdom (1,066)
- United States (8,769)
- Videos (564)
- Virginia (219)
- Wanted/Research Requests/Call for Papers (146)
- Women (1,389)
Calendar of Posts

November 2024

M T W T F S S

1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30

« Aug
Links
Meta

Mixed Race Studies

SO 3300: ‘Race’and ‘Mixed Race’

Pages

Categories

Calendar of Posts

Links

Meta