{"id":3295,"date":"2009-11-18T19:15:53","date_gmt":"2009-11-18T19:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=3295"},"modified":"2009-11-18T19:16:30","modified_gmt":"2009-11-18T19:16:30","slug":"the-dismissal-of-the-mulatto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=3295","title":{"rendered":"The Dismissal of the &#8220;Mulatto&#8221;&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>The dismissal of the \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=451\" target=\"_blank\">mulatto<\/a>\u201d through his emasculation is historically grounded: \u201cso frequently did nineteenth century writers depict <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=1146\" target=\"_blank\">octoroons<\/a> as delicate beauties that the word itself began to conjure up images of passive femininity. Although by definition an octoroon was either a male or a female with one-eighth Black blood, Black men in novels were rarely described as such.\u201d There is, of course, an immense bibliography of work (primary and secondary) concerning the \u201ctragic mulatto\u201d as a typically female protagonist, who is unable to find her place in society because of her biracial heritage. This displacement has sexual implications, explains Cynthia Nakashima: \u201c[b]ecause of the structure of power and domination in the American gender system&#8230; weakness and vulnerability can be very exciting and attractive when applied to females.\u201d Although the mulatta narratives are intended to evoke sympathy, they often culled readerly desire instead.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.units.muohio.edu\/english\/People\/Faculty\/A_H\/DunningStefanie.html\" target=\"_blank\">Dunning, Stefanie<\/a>. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=3144\" target=\"_blank\">Demystifying the Tragic Mulatta: The Biracial Woman as Spectacle.<\/a>\u201d <em>Stanford Black Arts Quarterly<\/em> 2.3 (Summer\/Spring 1997). 12-14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The dismissal of the \u201cmulatto\u201d through his emasculation is historically grounded: \u201cso frequently did nineteenth century writers depict octoroons as delicate beauties that the word itself began to conjure up images of passive femininity. Although by definition an octoroon was either a male or a female with one-eighth Black blood, Black men in novels were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,125],"tags":[894,647,637,79],"class_list":["post-3295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts","category-identitydevelopment","tag-mulatto","tag-stefanie-dunning","tag-stefanie-k-dunning","tag-tragic-mulatto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3295","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=3295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}