{"id":9623,"date":"2010-10-18T21:53:48","date_gmt":"2010-10-18T21:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=9623"},"modified":"2011-08-20T17:38:31","modified_gmt":"2011-08-20T17:38:31","slug":"mixing-blood-what-does-%e2%80%9cbiracialism%e2%80%9d-do-to-the-notion-of-%e2%80%9crace%e2%80%9d-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=9623","title":{"rendered":"Mixing Blood: What Does \u201cBiracialism\u201d Do to the Notion of \u201cRace\u201d? [Book Review]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mixing Blood: What Does \u201cBiracialism\u201d Do to the Notion of \u201cRace\u201d? [Book Review]<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

PINS (Psychology in Society)<\/a>
\nVolume 31<\/a> (2005)
\npages 99-105<\/p>\n

Gerhard Mar\u00e9<\/a><\/strong>, Professor of Sociology
\nUniversity of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban<\/em><\/p>\n

Book review:<\/strong> Rockquemore, Kerry Ann & David L. Brunsma<\/a> (2002) Beyond Black: Biracial identity in America<\/a><\/em>. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ISBN 0-7619-2322-5 pbk. Pages 256.<\/p>\n

The term and notion of \u201cbiracial\u201d confirms a perception of \u201craces\u201d, resting as it does on the acceptance of the existence, in some form, of two distinct \u201csomethings\u201d (races) that give rise to a combination. At the same time, paradoxically, it also adds confusion to the apparent certainty of race existence \u2013 what meaning can \u201crace\u201d have if it is so easily undermined through the creation of a totally new racial group or of a person who straddles \u201craces\u201d? Can we then have an infinite number of \u201craces\u201d through the infinitely various combinations of union that are possible?<\/p>\n

In America, \u201cbiracial\u201d challenges the \u201cone drop of blood rule<\/a>\u201d that for so long turned the offspring of a dilution of the hegemonic notion \u201cwhite\u201d into \u201cblack\u201d, and not into \u201cbiracial\u201d, or into \u201cColoured<\/a>\u201d as was the case in South Africa. In the strange world of race thinking, and of racism and \u201crace\u201d or racist power, one drop could not, ever, turn \u201cblack\u201d into \u201cwhite\u201d. This rule came to be accepted and then supported by black Americans as well, for a number of reasons.<\/p>\n

In academic research and writing, the area of \u201crace mixing\u201d seems to be gaining in popularity. As Parker and Song note, \u201cOf course racial mixture is nothing new \u2013 it has been the history of the world. What stands out as novel are the forms of political contestation gathering around the topic of \u2018mixed race\u2019<\/strong>\u201d (2001:1). Paul Spickard (2001) refers to the \u201cboom in biracial biography\u201d. Charmaine Wijeyesinghe (2001:129) writes that \u201cMultiracial identity is the newest chapter in the evolving field of racial identity development. The heightened interest in the experience of Multiracial people is fuelled by changing social demographics, an increasing number of Multiracial people who identify with their racial ancestries, and the emergence of groups advocating the rights of Multiracial people\u201d. Interest in this aspect of social life was also illustrated by the appearance of a second edition, in 2002, of Barbara Tizard and Ann Phoenix\u2019s Black, White or Mixed Race? Race and Racism in the Lives of Young People of Mixed Parentage<\/a><\/em>, first published in 1993.In South Africa, too, several contributions in the field of \u201cmixed race\u201d identity include an edited collection by Zimitri Erasmus<\/a> (2001) and an article by Jane Battersby (2003).<\/p>\n

\u201cBi-racialism\u201d, \u201chybridity<\/a>\u201d, \u201ccross-racial\u201d, \u201cmulatto<\/a>\u201d, \u201ccoloured\u201d, and so on, are terms that in different contexts signify an unnatural \u201cmixing of blood\u201d \u2013 in other words, moving beyond what is usually socially acceptable. The investigations that are reported on in books on this topic are of cases that need to be examined because of the disturbance it implies to the certainty of \u201crace\u201d categories, ripples on the smooth surface of the pond of race thinking. Of course, earlier, studies of the same social phenomenon set out to prove the horrors that arose from such mixing, the taint and the supposed mental and physical deficiencies that were to be the inevitable destiny of such people, the tragedies that befell them!<\/p>\n

As Zimitri Erasmus comments on \u201cmixture\u201d: \u201cThere is no such thing as the Black \u2018race\u2019. Blackness, whiteness and colouredness exist, but they are cultural, historical and political identities. To talk about \u2018race mixture\u2019, \u2018miscegenation\u2019, \u2018inter-racial\u2019 sex, and \u2018mixed descent\u2019 is to use terms and habits of thought inherited from the very \u2018race science\u2019 that was used to justify oppression, brutality and the marginalisation of \u2018bastard people\u2019\u201c (Erasmus (ed) 2001: Editor\u2019s note)…<\/p>\n

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

Mixing Blood: What Does \u201cBiracialism\u201d Do to the Notion of \u201cRace\u201d? [Book Review] PINS (Psychology in Society) Volume 31 (2005) pages 99-105 Gerhard Mar\u00e9, Professor of Sociology University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban Book review: Rockquemore, Kerry Ann & David L. Brunsma (2002) Beyond Black: Biracial identity in America. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ISBN 0-7619-2322-5 pbk. Pages […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,8],"tags":[157,158,4186,106,4185,629],"class_list":["post-9623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-media-archive","tag-david-brunsma","tag-david-l-brunsma","tag-gerhard-mare","tag-kerry-ann-rockquemore","tag-pins-psychology-in-society","tag-zimitri-erasmus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9623","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=9623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}