{"id":36919,"date":"2014-08-15T06:03:07","date_gmt":"2014-08-15T06:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=36919"},"modified":"2016-06-04T01:19:04","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T01:19:04","slug":"the-politics-of-multi-racial-identity-part-1-of-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=36919","title":{"rendered":"The Politics of Multi-Racial Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Politics of Multi-Racial Identity<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Mixed Roots Stories<\/a>
\n2014-07-23<\/p>\n

Marley-Vincent Lindsey<\/strong><\/a>, Guest Blogger<\/p>\n

Race-thinking has two distinct aspects: the real, and the conceptual. Both of these are important in the development of the racial politics of identity. These politics surround both what we know to be true about race (the real) and what we are taught corresponds to that reality (the conceptual). What these aspects have in common is their role as signifiers in the categorization of people both for the state and the individual. Stuart Hall<\/a> suggested that the entire construction of race was an exercise in turning the body into a text, something that is neat and well defined, in order that we might better understand it. Skin color, and the physical associations based on that color, become signifiers that we use to organize and categorize groups of people in a way that is convenient for a plurality of the population. If this idea is taken with some merit, then we can say that a whole series of problems in discussions of race are problems of language. When we argue about stereotypes, negative or positive, we are arguing about how accurately we have read people in the context of the state. The confirmation of stereotypes represents a successful unification of the real with the conceptual.<\/p>\n

The need to categorize is not exclusive to race-thinking; it is how we make sense of information. Without classifications and groupings, we are left with a variety of data that have little meaning behind them. Yet, if we look at race-thinking as a series of signs within language, then the importance of categorization is open to another set of problems. These are problems of relative identity. The French philosopher, Jacques Derrida<\/a>, perceived language as a series of signs that were ultimately relative. Particular words gained their significance only when defined in relation with their antithesis: \u201copen\u201d only really means something when compared with \u201cclosed\u201d, \u201cup\u201d with \u201cdown\u201d, and so on. \u201cWhite\u201d and \u201cBlack\u201d is another example of these antithetical pairs. A long history is associated with these colors, and their applications. As one example, Augustine<\/a> in the 5th century CE used the concept of light\u2014another synonym for white\u2014and the fall from light to denote those who maintained piety, and those who fell into sin, respectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhite\u201d and \u201cBlack\u201d as historical terms gained power within the conceptual that has never been fully developed. This history is also what complicated issues that made the line between them less distinct. And here, Multi Racial identities become actively political. To have someone who physically embodied White and Black is to actively challenge not simply the hierarchy, but the categorizations themselves. This was the reasoning behind legal prohibitions of miscegenation<\/a>, as well as social de-valuations of Multi Racial Subjects. As Frank Furedi<\/a> noted, in \u201dHow Sociology Imagined Mixed Race<\/a>\u201d: \u201cThe research agenda of the emerging race relations industry was dominated by the imperative of damage limitation\u201d. This policy began with the interactions of the Americas with Europe, and continued up to policing commercials for Cheerios. It relied on lines that could be imposed and enforced to the point that policing boundaries became subconscious. Edward Said\u2019s<\/a> process of Orientalizing the East is another way of formulating the creation of this category. Orientalism is a way of creating such conceptual categories, where lines are very clearly defined in the subconscious, although they may be difficult to articulate\u2014we might recall Justice Stewart on pornography: \u201cI shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced with that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read part 1 of 4\u00a0here<\/a>.
\nRead part 2 of 4\u00a0here<\/a>.
\nRead part 3 of 4\u00a0here<\/a>.
\nRead part 4 of 4 here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Politics of Multi-Racial Identity Mixed Roots Stories 2014-07-23 Marley-Vincent Lindsey, Guest Blogger Race-thinking has two distinct aspects: the real, and the conceptual. Both of these are important in the development of the racial politics of identity. These politics surround both what we know to be true about race (the real) and what we are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8,6941],"tags":[17639,15960],"class_list":["post-36919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-media-archive","category-philosophy","tag-marley-vincent-lindsey","tag-mixed-roots-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36919","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=36919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47278,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36919\/revisions\/47278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}