{"id":32705,"date":"2013-08-04T02:47:43","date_gmt":"2013-08-04T02:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=32705"},"modified":"2013-08-04T02:47:43","modified_gmt":"2013-08-04T02:47:43","slug":"blurring-the-%e2%80%9ccolor-line%e2%80%9d-reflections-on-interracial-and-multiracial-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=32705","title":{"rendered":"Blurring the \u201cColor-Line\u201d?: Reflections on Interracial and Multiracial America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blurring the \u201cColor-Line\u201d?: Reflections on Interracial and Multiracial America<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

49th Parallel: An Interdisciplinary Journal of North American Studies<\/a>
\nIssue 6: Special Issue – Race and Ethnicity<\/a> (Fall 2000)
\nISSN: 1753-5794<\/p>\n

Yasuhiro Katagiri, Ph.D.<\/strong>, Associate Professor of American History and Government,
\nTokai University, Kanagawa, Japan<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201c[N]o matter how we articulate this [case] [and] no matter which theory of the due process clause . . . we attach to it, no one can articulate it better than Richard Loving, when he said to me: \u2018Mr. Cohen, tell the Court I love my wife, and it is just unfair that I can\u2019t live with her in Virginia.\u2019\u201d \u2014Bernard S. Cohen<\/a>, Counsel for Appellants, Oral Argument, Loving v. Virginia<\/a><\/em>, United States Supreme Court, April 10, 1967<\/p>\n

\u201cWe basically accept that there are three races–Caucasians, Negroes and Orientals.\u00a0 Caucasians can\u2019t date Orientals, Orientals can\u2019t date Caucasians, and neither of them can date Negroes.\u201d \u2014Bob Jones III<\/a>, President, Bob Jones University<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/a>, eloquently delivered his \u201cdream\u201d<\/a> to the American people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial<\/a> in Washington, D.C.\u00a0 \u201cI have a dream,\u201d King\u2019s voice reverberated to \u201clet freedom ring\u201d from the nation\u2019s capital, \u201cthat my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.\u201d\u00a0 However, in the years since one of America\u2019s foremost civil rights crusaders spoke these noble words during the March on Washington, divisions between races have refused to go away, and the American society, as if to punctuate the words \u201cE Pluribus<\/a>\u201d rather than the word \u201cUnum,\u201d still splinters into \u201cdisparate factions\u201d divided by race and ethnicity.<\/p>\n

Almost four decades after his father challenged the conscience of America, Martin Luther King\u00a0III<\/a> stood before the Lincoln Memorial on a hot and steamy day in August 2000.\u00a0 Speaking before several thousand people at a rally billed as\u00a0 \u201cRedeem the Dream,\u201d which was organized to protest police brutality and its racial profiling, King\u2014one of those \u201cfour little children\u201d\u2014told the gathered crowd: \u201cI dare you to fulfill the dream.\u201d\u00a0 Though race of course has something to do with \u201cbiological makeup,\u201d as Jon M. Spencer argues in his book on what he terms America\u2019s \u201cmixed-race movement,\u201d<\/a> it also is \u201ca sociopolitical construct,\u201d\u00a0 which \u201cwas created and has been maintained and modified by the powerful\u201d to perpetuate themselves as a privileged group.\u00a0 And the United States, in this regard, has been no stranger.<\/p>\n

But on the verge of a new millennium, while the underpinnings of the nation\u2019s affirmative action seem to be somewhat crumbling, an accelerating social trend\u2014the increase of interracial marriages and the growing number of multiracial citizens\u2014is beginning to engulf American society, which might well contribute to bringing about a long-hoped-for \u201ccolor-blind\u201d society.\u00a0 And this\u00a0 important, but heretofore imperceptible, social and demographic trend has been in evidence during the 2000 presidential election year, which is also a decennial census-taking year in the United States.\u00a0 As an illustration, the embracement of, or at least the recognition of, the nation\u2019s multiracial citizens could be manifestly observed during the national convention of the Republican Party, which has been recognized for some time as the party of, by, and for \u201cthe powerful.\u201d\u00a0 One of the keynote speakers on the final day of the Philadelphia convention was Republican Nominee George W. Bush\u2019s<\/a> nephew\u2014George P. Bush<\/a>.\u00a0 He is not only the son of Florida Governor Jeb Bush<\/a> and a descendant of a new political dynasty, but also the son of Columba, his Mexican-born mother.\u00a0 \u201cI am an American, but like many, I come from a diverse background,\u201d\u00a0 the youth chairman of the Republican National Convention proudly proclaimed, \u201c[a]nd I respect leaders who respect my [multiracial and multicultural] heritage.\u201d…<\/p>\n

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

Blurring the \u201cColor-Line\u201d?: Reflections on Interracial and Multiracial America 49th Parallel: An Interdisciplinary Journal of North American Studies Issue 6: Special Issue – Race and Ethnicity (Fall 2000) ISSN: 1753-5794 Yasuhiro Katagiri, Ph.D., Associate Professor of American History and Government, Tokai University, Kanagawa, Japan \u201c[N]o matter how we articulate this [case] [and] no matter which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8,26,394,20],"tags":[10444,15339],"class_list":["post-32705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-socialscience","category-usa","tag-49th-parallel-an-interdisciplinary-journal-of-north-american-studies","tag-yasuhiro-katagiri"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32705","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=32705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}