{"id":18322,"date":"2011-11-21T00:46:28","date_gmt":"2011-11-21T00:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=18322"},"modified":"2011-11-21T00:46:28","modified_gmt":"2011-11-21T00:46:28","slug":"families-on-the-color-line-patrolling-borders-and-crossing-boundaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=18322","title":{"rendered":"Families on the color-line: patrolling borders and crossing boundaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Families on the color-line: patrolling borders and crossing boundaries<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Race and Society<\/a>
\nVolume 5, Issue 2<\/a>, 2002
\nPages 139-161
\nDOI: 10.1016\/j.racsoc.2004.01.001<\/a><\/p>\n

Erica Chito-Childs<\/a><\/strong>, Associate Professor of Sociology
\nHunter College, City University of New York<\/em><\/p>\n

Multiracial couples and families are becoming increasingly more common, yet opposition to these relationships still exists even if it is often hidden in color-blind language. In this lingering societal opposition to black-white unions, the strongest opposition often comes from the couples\u2019 families. The social institution of the family plays an integral role in reproducing the dominant ideologies of race that exist in society, and more specifically a racialized discourse that actively discourages interracial unions. Families reproduce racial boundaries, by patrolling who their members can and cannot become involved with. In our society where group membership is all-important and identity is based primarily on one\u2019s racial group, families object to individuals from different \u201cracial\u201d groups redefining themselves apart from their racial identities. Drawing from in-depth interviews with black-white couples, the responses of their white and black families will be explored to illustrate how families express opposition to black-white interracial relationships. In both white and black families, certain discourses are used when discussing black-white relationships that reproduce the image of these unions as different, deviant, even dangerous. Interracial relationships and marriage often bring forth certain racialized attitudes and beliefs about family and identity which otherwise are not expressed.<\/p>\n

Article Outline<\/strong><\/p>\n