{"id":17626,"date":"2011-11-04T04:15:34","date_gmt":"2011-11-04T04:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=17626"},"modified":"2017-02-06T16:14:42","modified_gmt":"2017-02-06T16:14:42","slug":"racialiscious-2011-10-31","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=17626","title":{"rendered":"The Multiracial Identity Movement: Countless Ways to Misunderstand Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Multiracial Identity Movement: Countless Ways to Misunderstand Race<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

MixedRaceStudies.org<\/a>
\n2011-11-04<\/p>\n

Steven F. Riley<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Jen Chau\u2019s essay, \u201cMultiracial Families: Counted But Still Misunderstood<\/a>,\u201d in the October 31, 2011 issue of Racialiscious<\/em>, reveals just how much race is misunderstood by some activists within the multiracial identity movement and exemplifies why the movement\u2014in its current form\u2014is incapable of leading\u00a0us into a post-racial future.<\/p>\n

Part of the \u201cquiet\u201d that Ms. Chau is experiencing is due to the realization that President Barack Obama<\/a> is not the multiracial messiah some had thought he would be. He is neither a messiah, nor is he\u2014as he has stated on multiple occasions\u2014multiracial.\u00a0 Unfortunately, in many ways, the policies of our first black<\/em> President differ little from our previous white<\/em> President (George W. Bush<\/a>). Is this the \u201cblack-white mix\u201d we were hoping for? Perhaps the quiet is the palatable disappointment in President Obama\u2019s first three years office. What part of \u201crace is a social <\/em>construction\u201d does she not understand?\u00a0 As succinctly stated by Professor Richard Thompson Ford<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause race is a social category and not a biological or genetic one, Obama\u2019s mixed parentage does not determine his race<\/em>. Mixed parentage may influence one\u2019s appearance, and a person whose appearance is racially ambiguous can influence how she is perceived. In such instances, race may be a question of personal affiliation to some extent. And mixed parentage may influence how one chooses to identify. But for the most part, society assigns us our races. At any rate, Obama\u2019s appearance is not ambiguous, and he unquestionably identifies as black<\/em>.\u201d (Emphasis is mine.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A good first step would be to for activists respect Obama’s identity\u00a0as they would like us to respect theirs.<\/p>\n

My theory\u2014which differs considerably from Ms. Chau\u2019s\u2014is that the \u201cquiet\u201d is due to fact that multiracial-identity movement is simply not <\/em>the progressive force she and others think it is; and we\u2014including activists themselves\u2014are beginning to recognize that.\u00a0 In many ways, the multiracial-identity movement mimics the tactics, ideologies and demagogueries of the right-wing conservative adherents that it claims to fight.<\/p>\n

The problems with the movement are numerous, but they can be narrowed to three major issues: 1) Race as biology, 2) Ahistoricity, and 3) the refusal to discuss the role of white supremacy within the discourses of multiraciality.<\/p>\n

After nearly a century of scientific acknowledgment that there is no such thing as \u201crace\u201d as a biological concept, why do some in the movement still pursue issues dealing with so-called \u201cmultiracial medicine?\u201d\u00a0 A truly progressive<\/em> movement would preface all of its statements with the fact that \u201crace\u201d in short, was a concept used to justify the extermination and enslavement of non-Europeans.<\/p>\n

Another deficiency in the multiracial movement is its unwillingness to acknowledge that so-called \u201cracial mixing\u201d in the Americas is a five-century\u2014not four decade\u2014aspect of our history.\u00a0 Thus even if<\/em> \u201crace\u201d were a biological concept, we are all most certainly \u201cmixed\u201d by now.\u00a0 Rather than making hypocritical (demanding the freedom to self-identify for some but not for others) pronouncements on President Obama\u2019s heterogeneous background, multiracial activists should also consider the heterogeneity of the First Lady Michelle Obama<\/a>, the overwhelming vast majority of black and Latino Americans, and yes, a significant segment of white Americans. In 1927, 40 years before the mythological baby-boom that was allegedly\u00a0brought about by Loving v. Virginia<\/a> <\/em>and just seven years after the last 20th-century census that would enumerate “mixed-race” people (Ms. Chau seems to have forgotten the seven past censuses starting in 1850 that counted mixed-race individuals), anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits<\/a>, revealed that,<\/p>\n

\u201cThe word \u201cNegro\u201d is, biologically, a misnomer, for the African Negroes, brought to the United States as slaves, have crossed in breeding with the dominant White population, as well as with the aboriginal American Indian types with whom they came into contact, so that there is today only a small percentage of the American Negroes who may be considered Negro in the ordinary sense of the term<\/em>.\u201d (The emphasis is mine.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When an early 20th-century anthropologist\u2014in the midst of an overtly racist era\u2014can show more insight that 21st century activists\u2014in the midst of the so-called \u201cAge of Obama\u201d era\u2014we have a serious problem.<\/p>\n

Lastly, the most deafening \u201cquiet\u201d within the multiracial movement, is its silence on the role of white supremacy in the continuing oppression and shaping of identities here in United States and around the world.\u00a0 It is the ideology of white supremacy that created the notion of race as biology, then racialized and dehumanized, enlslaved, and exterminated\u00a0people around the world for centuries\u2014and continue to do\u2014to preserve the current Eurocentric hegemonic paradigm.\u00a0 As Professor G. Reginald Daniel<\/a>\u00a0has warned,<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should be especially concerned about any half-hearted attack on the Eurocentric paradigm in the manner of interracial colorism that merely weakens rather than eradicates the dichotomization of blackness and whiteness, while leaving intact the racial hierarchy that maintains white privilege.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The type of incidents that agitate the multiracial identity movement today are not the growing wealth disparities among racialized groups, or current vigorous attempts to curtail voting rights of minorities ahead of the 2012 General Election, but rather the\u00a0freely <\/em>chosen racial identity by the President or the chosen racial identity of the child of a Hollywood celebrity. \u00a0As Ms. Chau has stated, there are many ways that we have to fight racism and ignorance, yet the movement\u2014particularly on the internet\u2014is more interested in\u00a0exploiting the bodies of young people by hosting\u00a0\u201cmixed-race\u201d fashion shows that conjure-up images of\u00a0Quadroon Balls<\/a> from the early 19th-century or\u00a0posting photographs of the allegedly \u201cmultiracial person of-the-day\u201d in a self-aggrandizing exercise that Professor Rainier Spencer<\/a> has coined as \u201cmiscentrism<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 At this rate, the multiracial-identity movement will be no more effective in combating racism and ignorance than a lukewarm decaffeinated soy-triple-shot no-fat latte at Starbucks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Multiracial Identity Movement: Countless Ways to Misunderstand Race MixedRaceStudies.org 2011-11-04 Steven F. Riley In Jen Chau\u2019s essay, \u201cMultiracial Families: Counted But Still Misunderstood,\u201d in the October 31, 2011 issue of Racialiscious, reveals just how much race is misunderstood by some activists within the multiracial identity movement and exemplifies why the movement\u2014in its current form\u2014is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,125,8,9139,26,394,20],"tags":[142,2806,3824,3823,3826,6875,45,7515,2727,2729,2728],"class_list":["post-17626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-pov","category-politics","category-socialscience","category-usa","tag-g-reginald-daniel","tag-jen-chau","tag-melville-herskovits","tag-melville-j-herskovits","tag-melville-jean-herskovits","tag-racialicious","tag-rainier-spencer","tag-richard-thompson-ford","tag-steve-riley","tag-steven-f-riley","tag-steven-riley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17626","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=17626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51419,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17626\/revisions\/51419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}