{"id":4167,"date":"2009-12-31T03:41:25","date_gmt":"2009-12-31T03:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=4167"},"modified":"2009-12-31T03:58:32","modified_gmt":"2009-12-31T03:58:32","slug":"i-dentity-the-biracial-woman-as-a-bridge-in-third-wave-feminism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=4167","title":{"rendered":"I-Dentity: The Biracial Woman as a Bridge In Third-Wave Feminism"},"content":{"rendered":"

I-Dentity: The Biracial Woman as a Bridge In Third-Wave Feminism<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Erica Jackson<\/strong>
\nFall 1993<\/p>\n

This is by no means intended to be an exhaustive discussion of the biracial experience in America, which is in no way monolithic.\u00a0 In fact, it is inspired by the belief that race (whether singular or plural)\u00a0 is an outdated concept and so it alone does not determine self-image, and if it does, not necessarily in the ways we stereotype each other, nor to the degree of signifigence generally attached to it in the mass media.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Toward that end, this paper will suspend disbelief in the concept of race, in order to explore the dimensions and constructions of race.\u00a0 If nothing else, I hope it raises questions about the assumptions we\u00a0 carry with us.\u00a0 A biracial person is first and foremost a person, with all the shared and unique qualities of any other.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Assumptions about the biracial become self-fulfilling prophecies. Like all assumptions (regarding women, or blacks, for example), they limit the possibilities of both the person making them and the person about whom they are made, and in their ability to connect.\u00a0 While mixed race people are a natural link between the races of which they are a part, images of them have\u00a0 instead been used for divisive purposes.<\/p>\n

This is especially disturbing as it applies to relationships among and between white, biracial and black women.\u00a0 Rather than connecting on the basis of interests or other shared experience, the relationship between blacks and biracials is often predicated upon the latter’s partial denial of heritage.\u00a0 This illustrates a basic problem in race relations.\u00a0 By viewing race as a fundamental identification, it becomes defined in very narrow terms and experiences, alienating blacks both from non-blacks with whom they might share profound experiences and from other black\/part black biracial individuals whose experience is very different from their own.
\n\u00a0
\nTheories aside, the author questions the ability of one so tied to the issue as herself to be objective.\u00a0 Are my assertions and reflections simply based on the idealism with which I judge events?\u00a0 Could I be reinventing my experience to accommodate my beliefs?\u00a0 Am I nit-picking or merely whining about realities I should simply accept?\u00a0 Perhaps objectivity is overrated and empiricism does not always apply.\u00a0 After all, if we don’t tell our own stories, who will tell them for us?\u00a0 So far, no one…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I-Dentity: The Biracial Woman as a Bridge In Third-Wave Feminism Erica Jackson Fall 1993 This is by no means intended to be an exhaustive discussion of the biracial experience in America, which is in no way monolithic.\u00a0 In fact, it is inspired by the belief that race (whether singular or plural)\u00a0 is an outdated concept […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,125,8],"tags":[1674],"class_list":["post-4167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","tag-erica-jackson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4167","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=4167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}