Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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Tag: one-drop rule

  • More Than Black? Multiracial Identity and the New Racial Order

    In the United States, anyone with even a trace of African American ancestry has been considered black. Even as the twenty-first century opens, a racial hierarchy still prevents people of color, including individuals of mixed race, from enjoying the same privileges as Euro-Americans. In this book, G. Reginald Daniel argues that we are at a…

  • Cultural Inversion and the One-Drop Rule: An Essay on Biology, Racial Classification, and the Rhetoric of Racial Transcendence

    In this article, my thesis is simple. If racial caste has been upended by changes in legal rules that created a hierarchical racial structure, its demise also has been hastened by the use of symbols, a strategy of cultural inversion with respect to the meaning of race.

  • “If You’re Half Black, You’re Just Black”: Reflected Appraisals and the Persistence of the One-Drop Rule

    “If You’re Half Black, You’re Just Black”: Reflected Appraisals and the Persistence of the One-Drop Rule Sociological Quarterly Volume 51 Issue 1 (Winter 2010) Pages 96 – 121 Published Online: 2010-01-15 DOI: 10.1111/j.1533-8525.2009.01162.x Nikki Khanna, Associate Professor of Sociology University of Vermont Despite growing interest in multiracial identity, much of the research remains atheoretical and…

  • Crossing the Color Line: Racial Migration and the One-Drop Rule, 1600–1860

    Crossing the Color Line: Racial Migration and the One-Drop Rule, 1600–1860 Minnesota Law Review Volume 91, Number 3 (February 2007) pages 592-656 Daniel J. Sharfstein, Professor of Law Vanderbilt University “It ain’t no lie, it’s a natural fact, / You could have been colored without being so black…” —Sung by deck hands, Auburn, Alabama, 1915–161…

  • The End of the One-Drop Rule? Labeling of Multiracial Children in Black Intermarriages

    The End of the One-Drop Rule? Labeling of Multiracial Children in Black Intermarriages Sociological Forum Volume 20, Number 1 (March, 2005) pages 35-67 Print ISSN: 0884-8971, Online ISSN: 1573-7861 DOI: 10.1007/s11206-005-1897-0 Wendy D. Roth, Assistant Professor of Sociology University of British Columbia, Canada The identity choices of multiracial individuals with Black heritage have traditionally been…

  • Race and the “One Drop Rule” in the Post-Reconstruction South

    Race and the “One Drop Rule” in the Post-Reconstruction South Renegade South: Histories of Unconventional Southerners 2009-03-17 Victoria E. Bynum, Emeritus Professor of History Texas State University, San Marcos Many people, perhaps most, think of “race” as an objective reality. Historically, however, racial categorization has been unstable, contradictory, and arbitrary. Consider the term “passing.” Most of…

  • What Does “Black” Mean? Exploring the Epistemological Stranglehold of Racial Categorization

    What Does “Black” Mean? Exploring the Epistemological Stranglehold of Racial Categorization Critical Sociology Vol. 28, No. 1-2 (2002) pages 101-121 DOI: 10.1177/08969205020280010801 David L. Brunsma, Professor of Sociology Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Kerry Ann Rockquemore, Associate Professor of Sociology University of Illinois at Chicago The “check all that apply” approach to race on the…

  • one-drop rule

    The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term for a belief among some people in the United States that a person with any trace of African ancestry is black. See also: hypodescent. Wikipedia For more information, see Winthrop D. Jordan’s (Paul Spickard, ed.) “Historical Origins of the One-Drop Racial Rule in the United States,” in…

  • Racial Mixture and Affirmative Action: The Cases of Brazil and the United States

    Racial Mixture and Affirmative Action: The Cases of Brazil and the United States The American Historical Review Volume 108, Number 5 December 2003 Thomas E. Skidmore, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Professor of History Emeritus Brown University For me, as a historian of Brazil, North America’s “one-drop rule” has always seemed odd. No other society in…

  • Evidence for Hypodescent and Racial Hierarchy in the Perception of Biracial Individuals

    Evidence for Hypodescent and Racial Hierarchy in the Perception of Biracial Individuals SPSP 2010 The Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology 2010-01-28 through 2010-01-30 Las Vegas, Nevada Arnold K. Ho Harvard University Daniel T. Levin Vanderbilt University Jim Sidanius, Professor Psychology and African and African American Studies Harvard University Mahzarin…