{"id":12703,"date":"2011-03-17T03:00:52","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T03:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=12703"},"modified":"2013-08-16T01:58:02","modified_gmt":"2013-08-16T01:58:02","slug":"the-invisible-line-american-families%e2%80%99-journeys-from-black-to-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=12703","title":{"rendered":"The Invisible Line: American families\u2019 journeys from black to white"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Invisible Line: American families\u2019 journeys from black to white<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Research news@Vanderbilt<\/a>
\nVanderbilt University
\n2011-02-17<\/p>\n

Amy Wolf<\/strong><\/p>\n

The idea of someone transitioning from black to white, without science or surgery, seems hard to grasp on the surface. Yet Vanderbilt Law School professor Daniel J. Sharfstein<\/a> finds that African Americans have continually crossed the color line and assimilated into white communities from 17th century America through today. This actual journey has little to do with one\u2019s skin color and more to do with a society\u2019s willingness to look beyond race.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk about the great migration north of African Americans in the 20th century, but this mass migration across the color line impacted millions of people and was hundreds of years in the making,\u201d said Sharfstein. \u201cIt\u2019s very easy to forget this history. This process of migrating across the color line is something that falls outside of what we think of as African American history because it\u2019s a history that people were trying to cover up and forget as it was happening.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…Self definition, not color, was key<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sharfstein spent almost a decade researching dozens of families that, for social, economic, safety and other reasons, chose to change their race and create new lives. Sharfstein found court and government records, personal letters and other archives that helped paint vivid pictures of these Americans.<\/p>\n

While previous records of \u201cpassing\u201d have focused on individuals\u2019 struggles to redefine themselves, often by leaving their homes and fabricating new identities, Sharfstein found large numbers of people who managed to defy the legal definitions of race right within their own communities. Sharfstein found that what mattered most was not the color of their skin, but how they defined themselves and related to their neighbors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat this research tells us is that the categories of black and white have never been about blood. There were plenty of people throughout American history who were not just white, but quintessentially white, powerfully white, and had African American ancestors,\u201d said Sharfstein. \u201cThen we\u2019re left thinking, \u2018What is black and what is white then if it\u2019s not about blood and biology?\u2019 And what we wind up with is just the fact of separation and hierarchy.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Three families\u2019s stories<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sharfstein focused much of his research on three families whom he chronicled in a new book titled \u201cThe Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White<\/a>.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Invisible Line: American families\u2019 journeys from black to white Research news@Vanderbilt Vanderbilt University 2011-02-17 Amy Wolf The idea of someone transitioning from black to white, without science or surgery, seems hard to grasp on the surface. Yet Vanderbilt Law School professor Daniel J. Sharfstein finds that African Americans have continually crossed the color line […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,125,8,6462,20],"tags":[5705,2766,2767,5706,5707],"class_list":["post-12703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-amy-wolf","tag-daniel-j-sharfstein","tag-daniel-sharfstein","tag-research-newsvanderbilt","tag-vanderbilt-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12703\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}