{"id":4754,"date":"2010-01-26T21:56:11","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T21:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=4754"},"modified":"2013-02-20T04:51:47","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T04:51:47","slug":"princeton-professor-tweets-about-her-views-on-mixed-race-identity-interview-with-melissa-harris-lacewell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=4754","title":{"rendered":"Princeton Professor tweets about her views on mixed-race identity (Interview with Melissa Harris-Lacewell)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Princeton Professor tweets about\u00a0 her views on mixed-race identity (Interview with Melissa Harris-Lacewell)<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mixed Child: The Pulse of the Mixed Community<\/a>
\n2009-07-29<\/p>\n

Jeff Eddings<\/strong><\/p>\n

MSNBC<\/em> contributor, Princeton University’s Associate Professor of Politics & African American Studies and author of Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought<\/em> Melissa Harris-Lacewell<\/a> had a frank\u00a0 discussion with a follower on Twitter about the concept of mixed-race identity.<\/p>\n

The conversation with Jeff Eddings of Silicon Valley, CA went as follows (published Monday, July 27th [2009]):<\/p>\n

Eddings:<\/strong> Wrong pres[idential]. predictions aside, the biggest missed opp. w\/BO [Barack Obama]\u00a0as pres. & you in the mix is lack of discussion re: multiracial.<\/p>\n

Harris-Lacewell:<\/strong> I’m not sure its a missed opportunity. From my perspective I am not “multi-racial” the term has no meaning for me.<\/em><\/p>\n

Eddings:<\/strong> We keep talking about race as if it were one thing. e.g. You & pres. are both multiracial, but only self-identify as black.<\/p>\n

Harris-Lacewell:<\/strong> because race is a social construct it is clear to me that I am constructed as black and self-identify as such.<\/em><\/p>\n

Eddings:<\/strong> Being multiracial & having grown up in both cultures, I can tell you that I’m not constructed as simply one or the other \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Harris-Lacewell:<\/strong> Though I respect that ppl [people]\u00a0have right to think of themselves as anything they like, I think “multi-racial” is a weird idea…<\/em><\/p>\n

…Harris-Lacewell:<\/strong> I don’t believe multi-racial makes sense by my understanding of race.<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/em>Race is socially constructed and “multi-racial” seems to assume that race is biological: if parents are of different then the kid is “mixed”.\u00a0 <\/em>But that is not how race works. Race is constructed through law, history, culture, practice, custom, etc… I have a white mother and black father, but this doesn’t make me mixed race. Race is not biology. In USA this combo makes me black…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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

Princeton Professor tweets about\u00a0 her views on mixed-race identity (Interview with Melissa Harris-Lacewell) Mixed Child: The Pulse of the Mixed Community 2009-07-29 Jeff Eddings MSNBC contributor, Princeton University’s Associate Professor of Politics & African American Studies and author of Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought Melissa Harris-Lacewell had a frank\u00a0 discussion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,125,13743,6,26,394,20,25],"tags":[1997,1916,1915,6477,1998],"class_list":["post-4754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-identitydevelopment","category-interviews","category-new-media","category-politics","category-socialscience","category-usa","category-women","tag-bwatrwp","tag-jeff-eddings","tag-melissa-harris-lacewell","tag-melissa-harris-perry","tag-mixed-child-the-pulse-of-the-mixed-community"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4754","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=4754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4754\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}