{"id":13483,"date":"2012-02-02T02:41:19","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T02:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=13483"},"modified":"2017-04-18T00:14:55","modified_gmt":"2017-04-18T00:14:55","slug":"race-remixed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=13483","title":{"rendered":"Race Remixed?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Race Remixed?<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Living Anthropologically<\/a>
\n2011-03-28<\/p>\n

Jason Antrosio<\/a><\/strong>, Associate Professor of Anthropology
\nHartwick College, Oneonta, New York<\/em><\/p>\n

The 2000 U.S. Census was the first in modern times allowing respondents to check off more than one box for the mandatory race question. In 2010, the number of people checking more than one box grew enormously<\/a>. At the New York Times<\/em>, Susan Saulny investigates \u201cthe growing number of mixed-race Americans\u201d in a series called \u201cRace Remixed<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

This post uses Saulny\u2019s numbers to do a reality check. There may be some interesting things going on with regard to personal attitudes about racial identification, but in terms of how race really matters\u2013economic and political inequalities, or structural racism\u2013the trends look more like retrenchment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Race and racism in the U.S. today is best seen through economic and political inequalities. The average white household holds ten to twenty times the wealth of the average black household. This gap is growing, as reported in \u201cThe Racial Wealth Gap Increases Fourfold<\/a>\u201d (2010). And despite Barack Obama<\/a>, black political power is extremely limited:…<\/p>\n

…Given these present inequalities\u2013which by some measures are increasing, not decreasing\u2013I don\u2019t find it very interesting that \u201cmany young adults of mixed backgrounds are rejecting the color lines that have defined Americans for generations in favor of a much more fluid sense of identity,\u201d the subject of Saulny\u2019s first article \u201cBlack? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose All of the Above<\/a>.\u201d Personal feelings about race and identity could influence economic-political inequality, but it will not be automatic. There are already a lot of white people who say \u201crace doesn\u2019t matter anymore.\u201d They are often the same people who ask \u201cwhy do all the black people sit together?\u201d or complain about affirmative action and \u201creverse racism.\u201d Statements of \u201crace doesn\u2019t matter anymore\u201d or rejecting color lines often are claims to a more enlightened-progressive state, better than benighted previous generations, or people of color, who are tagged as \u201cmore racist.\u201d Saulny does briefly mention the \u201cpessimists\u201d who think the emphasis on mixing might \u201clead to more stratification.\u201d She also writes \u201cit is telling that the rates of intermarriage are lowest between blacks and whites, indicative of the enduring economic and social distance between them.\u201d Still, the vast bulk of the article is about new multiracial college students celebrating mixture.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Saulny\u2019s second article, \u201cBlack and White and Married in the Deep South<\/a>\u201d is more interesting. It is certainly worth investigating the rise of black-white marriages in places like Mississippi<\/a>, where such unions were illegal 50 years ago, and where \u201ca black man could face mortal danger just being seen with a woman of another race.\u201d This is not to say southern states are \u201cmore racist\u201d than northern states, which still boast the most segregated cities in the United States. Northern states have usually been able to get by on economic-geographic segregation instead of explicit legal sanction or lethal violence, although there has been plenty of legal sanction and lethal violence in northern states (see \u201cA Dream Still Deferred<\/a>\u201d on Detroit<\/a>). In any case, it is actually difficult to tell what is going on in Mississippi\u2013is there really an increase, or are people just checking off different boxes in 2010 than they did in 2000?<\/p>\n

The question remains as to whether inter-racial marriages can alter the structure of economic and political inequality. On this question, the graphic of \u201cWho is Marrying Whom<\/a>\u201d is very enlightening. The numbers hint at three points I elaborate below: first, white people and the white-black household wealth gap are not going away; second, the \u201cHispanic\u201d category shows signs of bifurcating into white and black; third, Asian-Americans have more securely become \u201cprobationary whites\u201d:<\/p>\n

What matters here is how the changing construction of whiteness intersects with the maintenance of a white\/black divide that structures all race relations in the United States. Whether significant numbers of the people now called Latinos or Asian Americans\u2013or the significant numbers of their known \u201cmixed\u201d offspring with whites\u2013will become probationary whites and thus reinforce the structure is an important indicator of the future of race relations in the United States. (Trouillot 2003:151, Global Transformations<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

White people are not going away
\n<\/strong>
\nIn 2009, approximately 95% of white people married each other, a figure that rises to 97% if \u201cHispanic (white)\u201d is included. About five whites out of every thousand married a black person, or about 0.5%. That\u2019s not going to change the wealth gap. Indeed, I suspect the numbers of white-black intermarriages decrease as one moves up the class ladder, but the overall number is so miniscule that further tracking is unnecessary.<\/p>\n

There is certainly more white-black intermixture than registered by official marriage numbers. As \u201cCensus Data Presents Rise in Multiracial Population of Youths<\/a>\u201d reveals, the most common multi-racial combination chosen is white-and-black. This may simply be recognizing a long history of intermixture: \u201cAmerica already has almost 400 years of race mixing behind it, beginning with that first slave ship that sailed into Jamestown<\/a> harbor carrying slaves who were already pregnant by members of the crew\u201d<\/strong> (Brent Staples, 1999, \u201cThe Real American Love Story\u201c). However, mixing has not altered overall white-black disparities.<\/strong> White people, white privilege, white-black wealth gap: no reason from the 2010 numbers to believe there will be much change….<\/p>\n

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

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