{"id":29740,"date":"2013-03-21T15:03:45","date_gmt":"2013-03-21T15:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=29740"},"modified":"2017-04-24T02:25:03","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T02:25:03","slug":"mixed-race-in-a-world-not-yet-post-racial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=29740","title":{"rendered":"Mixed race in a world not yet post-racial"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mixed race in a world not yet post-racial<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Seattle Times<\/a>
\n2013-03-20<\/p>\n

Jerry Large<\/a><\/strong>, Staff Columnist<\/p>\n

Populations of humans have always been mixing genes, but we still have trouble with the concept.<\/p>\n

Two recent books by University of Washington<\/a> professors address what mixed means in America, particularly examining the period between the Census Bureau\u2019s decision in the late 1990s to allow people, beginning in 2000, to choose more than one race, and the election of Barack Obama<\/a> in 2008. Both books say something about how mixed race as a category is sometimes used to further marginalize African Americans.
\n<\/strong>
\n\u201cTroubling the Family: The Promise of Personhood and the Rise of Multiracialism<\/a>,\u201d by Habiba Ibrahim<\/a>, an assistant professor of English, is written largely for an academic audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cTranscending Blackness: From the New Millennium Mulatta to the Exceptional Multiracial<\/a>,\u201d is written by Ralina Joseph<\/a>, associate professor in the Department of Communications.<\/p>\n

Both are important works, but today I\u2019m going to focus on Joseph\u2019s book, which is also scholarly, but written with the general reader in mind.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not post-racial yet, Joseph told me when we talked over coffee this week, and more mixing isn\u2019t getting us there, because we haven\u2019t shaken old ways of categorizing people. The combination of black and white, weighted with centuries of racism, raises the most issues.<\/p>\n

Joseph noted the census change was most notably championed by Susan Graham<\/a>, a white mother who wanted her son to be able to mark down multiracial, and, Joseph said, \u201chad her young son testify before Congress, so that he did not have to identify as black<\/a>.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…But seeing multiracial as a separate category, a way of transcending blackness, is not a step forward, and it isn\u2019t racially neutral, Joseph said. It is, instead, a new use of old concepts, an affirmation that blackness is something to escape.<\/p>\n

Embracing all parts of a mixed heritage is a more positive act than migrating to a new category. Joseph calls herself a mixed-race African American.<\/strong> \u201cOne can\u2019t think about one\u2019s own identity choices without thinking about power realities.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…The African-American community has long been multiracial<\/strong>, ranging from milky skin and green eyes to deep chocolate, but to be counted as white still requires \u201cpurity.\u201d It\u2019s a protected status…<\/p>\n

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

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