Mixed Race Studies

The Blues in Black and White: A Collection of Essays, Poetry, and Conversations

Africa World Press, Inc.
May 2003
179 pages
ISBN-10: 0865438900; ISBN-13: 978-0865438903

May Ayim (1960-1996)

Translated by Anne Adams, Professor Emeritus in the Africana Studies & Research Center
Cornell University

The ever-engaging work of the controversial activist/writer, May Ayim, covers a fascinating range of themes: biography, politics, love as well as the absurdities of everyday life. Her unique ability to passionately transform diverse subject matters into poetic language is revealed in this important collection of translated pieces. Her play with language is effective and at times transformative, as it expresses and exposes dangerous stereotypes and messages hidden in the everyday use of language and human behavior. Here, her readers will be surprised and frequently confronted with Ayim’s keen and powerful observations of the complexities of life and the compelling richness of humor and irony within them.

Who Is Black in Brazil? A Timely or a False Question in Brazilian Race Relations in the Era of Affirmative Action?

Latin American Perspectives
Volume 33, Number 4 (July 2006)
pages 30-48
DOI: 10.1177/0094582X06290122

Sales Augusto dos Santos
University of Brasília

Translated by Obianuju C. Anya

At the end of 2001 the question of race became part of the Brazilian national agenda under the pressure of black social movements for the establishment of quotas for admission of Afro-Brazilians to public universities. There was already strong resistance to this proposal. One of the principal arguments against this kind of affirmative action was and continues to be that Brazilian racial boundaries are not as rigid as those of the United States—that, given its substantial miscegenation, it is impossible to know who is black. The myth of racial democracy seriously limits realistic discussion of racism and racial identity because it prevents the identification of dysfunctional race relations. The question is not who is black but what sort of society Brazilians want to build.

Read the entire article here.

The myth of racial democracy and national identity in Brazil

The New School, New York, New York
February 2006
195 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3239941
ISBN: 9780542943904

Leone Campos de Sousa

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science of the New School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

In the 1930s and 40s, both government and academics popularized the notion that several centuries of miscegenation had rendered Brazilian society uniquely free from racial prejudice and discrimination, a society in which citizens of all ‘races’ and ethnicities lived in harmony and had equal access to societal advantages. Since the 1950s, however, social scientists and black activists have insistently denounced the Brazilian myth of racial democracy as disingenuous for occluding racial inequalities. Indeed, statistics-oriented studies have largely documented the discrepancy in levels of socioeconomic conditions between whites and nonwhites in Brazil.

More recently, scholars of race have claimed the myth of racial democracy is in truth part of a deliberate ‘racial policy’ designed by white elites and enforced by the State to subjugate blacks and perpetuate white domination. They are committed to demystify the myth of racial democracy and enhance the racial consciousness of the ‘non-white’ population, who could thus politically defeat ‘racial hegemony.’ Even the Brazilian State, which has traditionally cultivated the myth of racial democracy, now rejects the idea that ‘race is not an issue in Brazil.  The last two administrations have implemented racial quotas to increase the access of ‘racial minorities’ to public universities and jobs in the public sector.

These efforts notwithstanding, it is a fact that the large majority of blacks and mixed-race people in Brazil have not been inclined to cultivate a strong racial identity. In fact, evidence shows that most Brazilians, regardless of ‘race,’ remain convinced that their society is blessed with relatively harmonious racial relations and oppose the ‘racialization’ of society explicitly proposed by this solution. Moreover, public opinion has fiercely rejected race-based affirmative action measures.

To make sense of Brazilians’ die-hard belief in the idea of racial democracy, I reconstruct the trajectory of this concept in the light of some theories of nationalism, especially Liah Greenfeld’s. I demonstrate that this myth was crucial to Brazilian national identity, and its long-lasting significance attests to the power of nationalism in Brazil.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Introduction
  • I. Race and Nationality in Brazil
  • II. Theoretical Framework
  • III. The Relevance of The Topic and Further Research
  • IV. Methodology and Sources
  • V. Structure of The Dissertation
• Chapter 2: Constructing An Identity: Nation-Building and Race in Brazil
  • I. Early Nationalism in Brazil
  • II. In Search of A “European” Identity
  • III. Miscegenation As “Whitening”
  • IV. The Rise of “Aggressive” Nationalism
  • V. Getúlio Vargas and The Triumph Of Brazilian Nationalism
  • VI. Gilberto Freyre And The Myth of Racial Democracy
  • VII. Conclusion
• Chapter 3: Deconstructing The Myth of Racial Democracy
  • I. From Fact to Myth
  • II. Challenging The Myth of Racial Democracy
  • III. The Myth Survives
  • IV. Conclusion
• Chapter 4: The Myth of racial Democracy As National Identity: Three Alternative Explanations
  • I. Race And Nationality By Thomas Skidmore
  • II. Anthony Marx’s Making Race And Nation
  • III. Race Vs. Nation: Hanchard’s Orpheus and Power
  • IV. Conclusion
• Chapter 5: The Myth Persists: Brazilians reaction to Affirmative Action Policies
  • I. The Increasing Influence of The Black Movement
  • II. The Controversy About Affirmative Action Policies in Brazil
  • III. Conclusion
• Chapter 6: Conclusion
  • I. Theories Of Nationalism And The Myth Of Racial Democracy
  • II. Alternative Explanations: A Critique
  • III. Globalization Then And Now: The Case of Brazil
• Bibliography

Introduction

This dissertation focuses on the role of the myth of racial democracy in the formation of Brazilian national identity. It discusses why the idea that Brazil’s multiethnic population lives in racial harmony has persisted despite centuries of slavery, as well as evidence of deeply ingrained racial prejudice against blacks, Indians, and the mixed-race people. This study argues that the myth of racial democracy, elaborated by Brazilian intellectuals in the first half of the last century, draws its strength from the fact that it was able to offer an answer to society’s apprehensions and misgivings about the large colored population in Brazil. Brazilian intellectuals resented popular European theories about the existence of a link between underdevelopment and racial composition, and responded by interpreting in a positive light what had been traditionally seen as the country’s Achilles’ heel: miscegenation. Racial mixture became the very basis of the concept of racial democracy that has since been crucial in the formation of Brazilian national identity.

Race and National Identity in Brazil

Until recently, both the Brazilian population and intelligentsia conceived of their society as relatively free of racial prejudice and discrimination, a society in which citizens of all “races” and ethnicities lived in harmony with similar access to societal advantages. It was also assumed that this laudable trait of Brazilian society reflected the widespread process of mestiçagem (miscegenation) that has taken place in that country since the colonial era. Although the celebration of mestiçagem as a distinct feature of Brazil can be traced to the mid-nineteenth century, it was in the 1930s that the discourse on Brazil as a “racial democracy” was accepted as a credible depiction of social reality by the cultivated elites and incorporated into popular jargon.

The racism-free image of Brazilian society gained recognition after the publication of Casa-Grande & Senzala in 1934, written by Gilberto Freyre, a young Brazilian social scientist recently graduated from Columbia University. Freyre sought to uncover the fundamental characteristics of Brazil’s society and culture. Although the main thesis of his book refers to the role of the colonial patriarchal family as the foundation of Brazilian society, Casa-Grande & Senzala also celebrates Brazil as a “hybrid civilization”—the product of a blending of Africans, Indians, and Europeans (primarily Portuguese).

The country he describes is not a racial paradise. He recognizes the structural disadvantages that blacks and mestiços (mixed-race) faced both in slavery and in their attempts toward social mobility after freedom, topic he further developed later in Sobrados e Mucambos. Freyre claims that racial miscegenation and cultural amalgamation in Brazil has not only created a new type of society but also founded the basis of a unique variety of ethnic and social democracy. According to him, the relative tolerance and communicability between the races engendered in the casa grandes (the masters’ mansions in the colonial era made modern race relations in Brazil less antagonistic than in any other country. Even though he never used the expression “racial democracy” in his Casa-Grande & Senzala, the author did suggest that:

Perhaps nowhere else is the meeting, intercommunication, and harmonious fusion of diverse or, even antagonistic cultural traditions occurring in so liberal a way as it is in Brazil… the Brazilian regime cannot be accused of rigidity or of a lack of vertical mobility, and in a number of social directions it is one of the most democratic, flexible, and plastic regimes to be found anywhere.

Some empirical facts seemed indeed to corroborate the discourse about the virtues of racial relations in Brazil. As a multiracial country, with a long history of slavery, the country has never witnessed, as in the United States or South Africa, relevant civil rights or racial-based movements. Racial discrimination had been declared illegal since the inauguration of the Republic in 1889. Brazil’s system of racial classification employs a color system—dividing Brazilians into whites, blacks, pardos, and yellows – which is perceived as a mere objective description of reality, as opposed to categories that evoke clear-cut racial or ethnic descent such as “Afro” or “Native” Brazilians…

…By the late 1970’s, the image of Brazil as a racial democracy came under fierce attack by many scholars and black activists who have claimed that it is in reality a veiled form of racism, part of a deliberate policy created by the Brazilian “white elites,” and enforced by the State, to subjugate blacks and mixed-raced peoples. This has been especially suggested by a new generation of scholars of race influenced by American scholarship on racial relations as well as by Abdias Nascimento. As Peter Fry has noted, for these authors. Brazil no longer represents a superior alternative but rather “an archaic and obscurantist system of race relations that must give way to the ‘reality’ of clearly defined races.”…

Purchase the dissertation here.

Critical Narrative of Multiracial Women’s Personal Journey: Negotiating the Intersectionallity of Race and Gender Issues in a Monoracial Paradigm

Georgia Southern University
June 2011
264 pages

Geralda Silva Nelson

A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Education

The aim of this study was to examine how three women of color, mothers of Multiracial children, experience gender and racial identity issues in the context of United States; explore their choice of racial indicator for their children and the impact that raising multiracial children would have on their own racial identity. This study was informed by critical race feminist thought, framed by qualitative inquiry and oral history as research methodology. Throughout this study I have attempted to demonstrate that gender and race are significant factors in these three women’s lived experiences. The participants’ accounts revealed how different aspects of sexism, racism, heritage pride, and racial invisibility have been a part of their lives, and influenced the choices of racial indicators for their multiracial children. There was ample evidence from the stories of these three participants that the racial identity indicator of their multiracial children and the consequences of these choices, provided a more significant set of apprehensions than the concerns these three women had for their own gender and racial identity issues. Data was collected through semi-structured open ended interviews.

Table of Contents

• 1. INTRODUCTION
  • Multiracial Individuals in the United States
  • Exploring Adequate Racial Identity
  • Educational Significance of the Study
• 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
  • Racism as a Factor in the U.S. Society
  • Gender as a Determinant Factor
  • Gender and Race Intersection
  • Study Framework: Critical Race Feminism
  • Issues of Ethnic Identity
  • White Mothers of Multiracial Children
  • Racial Labeling
  • Children‟s Perception of Their Racial Identity
  • Racial Identity via Peer Pressure
  • Social and Racial Power
  • Racial Categorization
  • Politics of Education and Language
  • Literacy and the Development of Identity
  • Themes Presented in the Literature Reviewed
• 3. METHODOLOGY
  • Oral History
  • Oral History Interviews
  • Listening to One Story at a Time
  • Context of Research
  • History of Turmoil
  • Narratives
  • Researcher/participants‟ Roles
  • Participant Selection
  • The Rules of Disclosure
  • Data Analysis
  • Synthesized Dominant Themes
  • Dominant Interview Themes
  • Recurrent Themes
  • Ethical Consideration and Possible Limitations of this Study
  • Conclusion
• 4. NARRATIVES
  • Maria
  • Jane
  • Sonia
• 5. RACISM
  • The Impact of Racism in the Lives of the Participants
  • Situated Race Relations in Country of Origin
  • Racial Awareness Before Relocating to the U.S.
  • Dealing with Racial Constructs Upon Arriving in the United States
  • Navigating the Complex Racial Landscape of the United States
  • Racial Interaction and Group Membership
  • Racism in the Form of Invisibility
  • Race as a Confounding Issue
  • Contesting Static Racial Construct
  • Breaking the Racial Conventions and Rethinking the Color Line
  • Exploring Racial Interactions
  • Situated Racial Awareness and the Construction of Difference
  • Becoming Aware of Multiraciality
• 6. THE IMPACT OF SEXISM IN THE LIVES OF THE PARTICIPANTS
  • Sexism as it Relates to the Oppression of Women of Color
  • Sexism in the Form of Patriarchy
• 7. FACTORS INFLUENCING THE PARTICIPANTS‟ DECISION TO CHOOSE A PARTICULAR RACE INDICATOR FOR THEIR CHILDREN
  • Responding to Institutions‟ Request for Racial Labels for Multiracial Children
  • Cultural Currency as a Factor
  • Checking Monoracial Boxes for Multiracial Children
  • Racial Heritage Pride as a Racial Identity Determinant
  • The Impact of Racial Indicators on the Educational Experience of Multiracial Children
  • Awareness of Self Racial Identity as Result of Having Multiracial Children
• 8. DISCUSSION
  • A Final Consideration
  • Recommendations for Further Scholarship
• REFERENCES
• APPENDICES
  • A Summary of Respondents‟ Information
  • B Participant Data Sheet
  • C Survey
  • D Interview Procedure
  • E Interview guide – English
  • F Interview Guide –Spanish
  • G Participant Informed Consent

Read the entire dissertation here.

Kept In, Kept out : The Formation of Racial Identity in Brazil, 1930-1937

Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
November 1996
95 pages

Veronica Armstrong

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Latin American Studies Program

This thesis examines the roles of historian Gilberto Freyre and the Sao Paulo black press in the formation of racial identity in Brazil. In Casa Grande e Senzala, published in 1933, Freyre presented a hypothesis of Brazilian national identity based on positive interpretations of slavery and miscegenation. His emphasis on racial harmony met with the approval of Getúlio Vargas, a president intent on the unification of Brazilian society. With Vargas’ backing, racial democracy became Brazilian national identity. Supporters included the black press which welcomed an idea that brought blacks into definitions of Brazilianness. Yet, blacks were embracing an interpretation of Brazilian identity that would replace a growing black racial awareness. Reasons for the undermining of black racial consciousness and the enshrining of racial democracy as Brazilian national identity emerge in an overview of shifts occurring during the first decades of the twentieth century. The forces of mass immigration, negative evaluations of Brazil by scientific racism, and the nation-building politics of Vargas affected the elite minority and the poverty-stricken majority of Brazilians, but in differing ways. For while economic stability and national pride were the goals of the former, research suggests that survival was the paramount aim of the latter. Addressing the needs of both groups, the adoption of racial democracy as national ideology in the late 1930s maintained elite privilege, defused the potential of racial unrest, and promised social mobility to the masses.

Benefits to the largely-black masses, however, had strings attached. Social mobility depended on their acting “white” and becoming “white” through miscegenation. In the face of desperate poverty, blacks had few options and assimilation seemed a way to move beyond their low socio-economic status. Furthermore, contrasts with American segregation convinced black writers that battling discrimination had to be secondary to the economic survival of their community. The thesis concludes by seeking to explain the paradox of a society characterised by many foreigners and most Brazilians as a racial paradise from the 1930s to the 1970s even though Brazilian reality evinces gross inequality between the small Europeanised elite and the large black and mixed-race underclass.

Table of Contents

• Approval
• Abstract.
• Acknowledgments.
• Preface.
• Introduction kept in, kept out:the question of brazilianness and black solidarity 1930-1937
  • The March for national identity
  • Brazilianness vs. Blackness
• Chapter 1. Ideology and Identity
  • The dawning of a new era of national thought
  • A historic moment
  • Whitening
  • A New Era
• Chapter 2. Race
  • Miscegenation and Racial Terminology
  • Racial Democracy: Theory and Revision
• Chapter 3. The Making of a Cultural Hero
  • Freyre: the child and the man
  • Freyre s “Old Social Order”
  • Ciasa Grande e Senzala
  • Freyre, the Intellectual
  • Freyre, Father of National Identity.
• Chapter 4. The Politics of Identity
  • The Black Press in Brazil
  • The Meaning of Language
  • From the mulato to the black press
  • The Black Press: an alternative path
  • Assimilation vs. segregation
  • A Frente Negra
• Chapter 5. Only we, the negros of Brazil, know what it is to feel colour prejudice
  • A Voz da Raza
  • Conclusion: We are Brazilian
  • Intellectuals and Ideology
  • Searching for identity
• Epilogue
• Bibliography

List of Figures

• figure 1: Roquete Pinto’s prediction of the racial make up of Brazilian populations based on official statistics 1872-1890
• figure 2: System of values within the miscegenation process

Read the entire dissertation here.

The “inter” land: Mixing autobiography and sociology for a better understanding of twenty-first century mixed-race

Villanova University
October 2009
105 pages
Publication Number: AAT 1462397
ISBN: 9781109073102

Felicia Maria Camacho

A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of The Department of English Villanova University In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in English

In contemporary autobiographies by black/white biracial Americans, personal identity is a major source of conflict. The proposed study will address topics that are key to an understanding of biracial subjectivity and identity as presented in these autobiographies. The first chapter addresses the physicality of biracial people, paying special attention to such topics as family resemblance in interracial families, and the trope of “biracial hair” which is used as a metaphor for a distinct biracial identity that is neither black nor white. The second chapter examines another identity choice for black/white biracial subjects: singular black identity. It shows how biracial individuals can turn on its head the traditional notion of the “tragic mulatto” who is forced by the one-drop rule to accept his/her blackness. By exploring and honestly acknowledging the social experiences of both parents, the biracial individual can come to assert a healthy black identity. The final chapter links black/white biracial identity with intrinsically multiracial Latino identity. Do ethnicity, nationalism, and language suggest a way to avoid the black/white binarism of American society?

While examining these issues of biracial identity, this study will engage in a commentary on the relationships between and among various academic disciplines. When analyzing literature about race, critics often turn to race theory for secondary material. However, contemporary race theory does not do much to engage and illuminate these autobiographies of biracialism. Interestingly, sociological texts speak more directly to the “biracial phenomenon.” Therefore each chapter of this study shows how sociology and autobiography complement one another and provide a fuller, more informed picture of biracial identity.

Table of Contents

• Abstract
• Introduction
• Chapter One: The Roots of Biracialism: Physical Appearance, Inheritance, and Identity in the Autobiographies of Elliott Lewis, Angela Nissel, and June Cross
• Chapter Two: The End of Tragedy: The New Biracial Subject, Self-Exploration, and Singular Black Identity in the Autobiographies of James McBride and Barack Obama
• Chapter Three: Finding the Third Space: Jews, Latinos, and Black/White Biracialism in the Autobiographies of Rebecca Walker, Elliott Lewis, and Angela Nissel
• Conclusion
• Works Cited

Purchase the dissertation here.

The Origins, Current Status, and Future Prospects of Blood Quantum as the Definition of Membership in The Navajo Nation

Tribal Law Journal
University of New Mexico School of Law
Volume 8 (2007-2008)
pages 1-17

Paul Spruhan, Law Clerk
Navajo Nation Supreme Court, Window Rock, Arizona

In this article, the author discusses the origin of the Navajo Nation’s blood requirement. Mr. Spruhan examines the intended purpose of the quarter-blood quantum definition and the role of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He reviews the current status, regulation, and recent attempts to change the quarter-blood quantum requirement. He discusses the future of the quarter-blood quantum requirement with respect to the Navajo Nation Council’s 2002 resolution known as the “Fundamental Laws of the Diné,” a resolution mandating the application of traditional law, customary law, natural law, and common law to the Navajo Nation Government and its entities. In this regard, Mr. Spruhan inquires as to the impact the “Fundamental Laws of the Diné” will have on the quarter-blood quantum requirement and future membership requirements.

In the last few years, scholars, reporters, lawyers, and the general public have focused much attention on tribal membership requirements. Recent controversies over membership of “Freedmen,” or descendants of slaves, in the Cherokee Nation and other Oklahoma tribes have produced scholarly and popular discussions of what it means to be “Indian” and a member of a tribal nation. Enrollment controversies among gaming tribes in California and recently recognized tribes in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, among others, have exposed acrimonious disagreements within tribal communities over how to define tribal membership. Tribes have disenrolled whole extended families and entire categories of members by reviewing prior enrollment records, or amending their laws to redefine membership eligibility. Popular press reports and scholarly articles on these controversies have introduced the concepts of “blood quantum” and “tribal membership” to a wider non-Indian audience. The resulting publicity has tested the power of tribal nations to define their membership independent of state and federal judicial and political control, as calls for outside intervention increase.

In the midst of these controversies, a recent panel at a continuing legal education seminar held in Window Rock, the capital of the Navajo Nation, discussed whether the Nation would experience similar membership controversies in the future, and how such issues might be approached under Navajo law. This article arises out of a presentation the author gave at that seminar on the origins of the Navajo Nation’s current membership rule, which requires a person to have at least one-quarter Navajo “blood.” The presentation described the origins of this requirement in light of the origins of “blood quantum” in federal Indian law, which the author has described in two previous law review articles.

Based on that presentation and the presentations of other panelists, as well as a lively discussion with members of the audience, this article aims to do several things. In Part I, the article describes the origins of the Navajo Nation’s quarter-blood requirement in an attempt to answer the question: how and why did the Navajo Nation adopt blood quantum as the definition for membership? Part I describes how that requirement came about through the resolutions and minutes of meetings of the Navajo Nation Council, and examines what Council delegates thought they were accomplishing through the quarter-blood definition. Part I also discusses the role of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the development of that membership definition. In Part II, the article discusses the current status of the quarter-blood requirement, how the Navajo Nation regulates it, and recent attempts to change the requirement. In Part III, the article analyzes the future prospects for the quarter-blood requirement, and blood quantum generally, in light of recent developments in Navajo Nation statutory law and the jurisprudence of the Navajo Nation Supreme Court concerning the “Fundamental Laws of the Diné.”…

…How might the quarter-blood requirement fare under a Fundamental Law analysis? Would the fact that blood quantum is not a traditional Navajo concept affect its enforceability? The concept of “blood quantum” originated in Anglo-American colonial law to define the status of mixed-race people and bar them from rights afforded whites. The federal government adopted this pre-existing concept to define “Indian” and “tribal member” for various purposes long before the Navajo Nation Council adopted blood quantum in 1953. Traditionally, Navajos use clanship to define identity. Each Navajo has four clans he or she identifies himself or herself by: the mother’s clan, the father’s clan, the maternal grandfather’s clan, and the paternal grandfather’s clan. A Navajo is a member of his or her mother’s clan and is “born for” his or her father’s clan. According to Navajo history, there were four original clans, and many clans that were subsequently adopted. Some of the adopted clans originate from Pueblo or other tribal peoples, as well as Mexicans, who were adopted into Navajo society. Various “non-Navajos” were absorbed into the Navajo people, and clans were created to conform them to the existing system of identity. Navajos also define themselves by “cultural identity markers” derived from origin stories, identified by one Navajo scholar, Lloyd Lee, as “worldview, land, language, and kinship.” Practicing the principles of hozho and sa’ah naaghai bik’eh hozhoon, speaking the Navajo language, and recognizing Navajo kinship, Lee argues, are the true definition of Navajo identity. Blood quantum plays no part in these conceptions of Navajo identity. Significantly, these concepts were essentially absent from the discussions of the prior Council in adopting the quarter-blood requirement…

Read the entire article here.

Invitation to Participate in Groundbreaking Study of Racial Identity

If you are a person at least 18 years old, who is commonly identified as black, African American, biracial, mixed, or multiracial, but do not yourself subscribe to racial identity as part of your sense of self, please consider reviewing the information at www.racetranscenders.com to see if you might be interested in participating in an important study of this identity disposition.

Tribal Kulturkampf: The Role of Race Ideology in Constructing Native American Identity

Seton Hall Law Review
Volume 35, Number 4 (2005)
pages 1241-1260

Carla D. Pratt, Associate Professor of Law
Pennsylvania State University

I. INTRODUCTION

“Law is embroiled in the politics of identity. It names parties, defines their speech and conduct, and assigns their rights and duties. Its judgments declare, enjoin, and award the tangible and intangible benefits of race and racial privilege.” Law has been deeply involved in the politics of defining racial identity. The rule of hypo-descent, also known as the “one-drop rule,” was codified as law in many states in an effort to define the group of people who were black and therefore subject to the deprivation of liberty through the institution of slavery and later subject to social, economic, and educational subjugation through Jim Crow. Although the rule has been repealed from the statutory compilations of law in those states that once had such a rule, it continues to operate on a cognitive and cultural level in American law and society. On a social and cultural level, most Americans still perceive anyone with known African ancestry and the skin coloration, hair texture, or facial features that serve as evidence of African ancestry, to be “black” or African American.

Unbeknownst to many, the rule of hypo-descent still operates in law on a structural level, particularly with respect to federal Indian law and the law of some Native American tribes. Within some Native American tribes, the rule is still covertly operating to construct Native American identity. In the struggle to preserve their very existence, some Native American tribes have subscribed to the basic assumptions of the dominant culture, including the assumption that whiteness is to be prized and non-whiteness devalued on a scale relative to the degree of color of one’s skin, with blackness constituting the most devalued state of being.

Few extant cases are more illustrative of law embroiled in the politics of racial identity than the case of Davis v. United States, which the United States Supreme Court recently declined to review. Davis was brought by two groups of people who are members of a federally recognized Indian tribe called the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. These groups, or “bands” of people, as they are commonly referred to in Indian discourse, are known as the Dosar-Barkus and Bruner bands of the Seminole Nation. They brought a lawsuit in federal court seeking to obtain treatment equal in nature and degree to the treatment received by other members of their tribe. Specifically, they sought to participate in certain tribal programs that are funded by a judgment paid by the United States for tribal lands taken by the United States government in 1823 when the tribe was in Florida. The federal courts ultimately refused to allow these bands of Seminoles to have their case heard on the merits by holding that Rule 19 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure precluded the hearing of the case because the tribe was an indispensable party which could not be joined in the action due to its sovereign immunity. The Seminole tribe’s culture war over the Dosar-Barkus and Bruner bands of Seminoles has even resulted in tribal efforts to amend the Seminole constitution in a manner that would exclude these Seminoles from tribal membership. Why are these bands of Indians treated differently from the remainder of their tribe? Why is their own tribe so hostile to them? What separates them from the majority of their tribe? They are black.

This Essay explores how law has utilized the master narrative of white supremacy and black inferiority to construct Native American identity in a way that presently enforces the rule of hypo-descent. I must concede that while the Seminole Nation or “tribe” is not culturally representative of the diversity of Indian Nations or tribes in the United States, an inquiry into the experience of the Seminoles provides a basis for identifying how the master narrative of white supremacy and black inferiority is used to construct Native American identity, and how the construction of Native American identity in this fashion serves to further advance white supremacy…

Read the entire essay here.

Domicile and Diaspora: Anglo-Indian Women and the Spatial Politics of Home

Wiley-Blackwell
August 2005
304 pages
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4051-0054-0
Papeback ISBN: 978-1-4051-0055-7
E-book ISBN: 978-1-4051-4130-7

Alison Blunt, Professor of Geography
Queen Mary, University of London

Domicile and Diaspora investigates geographies of home and identity for Anglo-Indian women in the 50 years before and after Indian independence in 1947.

• The first book to study the Anglo-Indian community past and present, in India, Britain and Australia.
• The first book by a geographer to focus on a community of mixed descent.
• Investigates geographies of home and identity for Anglo-Indian women in the 50 years before and after Indian independence in 1947.
• Draws on interviews and focus groups with over 150 Anglo-Indians, as well as archival research.
• Makes a distinctive contribution to debates about home, identity, hybridity, migration and diaspora.

Table of Contents

• List of Figures.
• Series Editors’ Preface.
• Acknowledgements.
• 1. Domicile and Diaspora: An Introduction.
• 2. At Home in British India: Imperial Domesticity and National Identity.
• 3. Home, Community and Nation: Domesticating Identity and Embodying Modernity.
• 4. Colonization and Settlement: Anglo-Indian Homelands.
• 5. Independence and Decolonization: Anglo-Indian Resettlement in Britain.
• 6. Mixed Descent, Migration and Multiculturalism: Anglo-Indians in Australia since 1947.
• 7. At Home in Independent India: Post-Imperial Domesticity and National Identity.
• 8. Domicile and Diaspora: Conclusions.
• Bibliography.
• Appendix 1 Archival Sources.
• Appendix 2 Interviews and Focus Groups.
• Index

Read chapter one here.