Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

The multiracial idea has at least two versions. One is that multiracial people are of mixed blood or mixed genetic material. The other is that multiracial people are those with parents of different recognizable races. On examination, both of these positions present problems. The first is most blatantly tied to the racist science of the nineteenth century. It suggests that a person with both black and white ancestry is not adequately or accurately described as black (or white). This assertion rests on the discredited biological model. To sustain this position, one would have to show not only that bloodlines or genes are the appropriate foundations upon which to classify races, but also that bloodlines or genetic indicators are clear. Stated more strongly, this view implies that pure blood-lines—people who are uniracial—define the current racial categories.

Many of the proponents of new multiracial categories are politically left of center and reject the overt racism of nineteenth-century biology. Yet, a number of the assumptions adopted by these advocates end up relying, unwittingly, on the same discredited science, one of the main assertions of which was that race and racial categories were based on blood or genes. Supposed racial difference cannot be sustained on this basis, however; the majority of white Americans have African ancestry, the majority of blacks have white ancestry, and a substantial number of each have American Indian ancestry. Indeed, under the old hypodescent or “one drop” rule, which asserts that “white blood” is pure and therefore contaminated by even one drop of “black blood,” most white Americans are, in fact, African American.

john a. powell, Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012), 39.

Playwright Sarah Rutherford: ‘Middle-class, mixed-race families are invisible on our stages’

Posted in Articles, Arts, Barack Obama, Interviews, Media Archive, United Kingdom on 2013-10-19 17:28Z by Steven

Playwright Sarah Rutherford: ‘Middle-class, mixed-race families are invisible on our stages’

What’s on Stage
London
2013-10-10

Editorial Staff

As her new play Adult Supervision premieres at the Park Theatre, playwright Sarah Rutherford discusses multiculturalism in modern Britain

What’s Adult Supervision about?

It’s set in 2008 and it’s about a white ex-lawyer, Natasha, who’s adopted two children from Ethiopia. As a parent who likes to do things by the book, she’s decided that it’s important for the kids to get to know the handful of other ‘children of colour’ at their very smart private school. Natasha seizes on the opportunity of the US election to invite the mothers of these children to a drinks party, but things start to go awry as the Obamatinis flow and inhibitions are shed.

Why did you set it on the night of Obama’s election?

I have such vivid memories of that night, and although it was historic for everyone, I think many communities—‘parents of children of colour’ being one—took it as a kind of personal victory. It was an incredibly heady moment—suddenly anything seemed possible—and it’s an interesting time to look back on from the perspective of today, when the US seems to be going into meltdown and November 2008 looks like an almost innocent time.

Would you describe it as a comedy?

Yes—a comedy drama. But the laughs in it come mostly from character, from truth (truths you may not have heard spoken out loud before) and from discomfort, rather than from gags.

How has your personal experience influenced and shaped the play?

Hugely. I’m married to a man of Jamaican origin and am the mother of two amazing mixed-race children, although they go to a much more diverse school than the one in the play. Some of the more jaw-dropping dialogue in the play is actually pretty much verbatim stuff that has been said to me over the years; other material has come from things that I’ve thought or sensed but that have gone unsaid…

Read the entire interview here.

Tags: Park Theatre, Sarah Rutherford, What's on Stage

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Mixed Race Studies

Playwright Sarah Rutherford: ‘Middle-class, mixed-race families are invisible on our stages’

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