Mixed Race Studies

Blood Quantum Land Laws and the Race versus Political Identity Dilemma

California Law Review
Volume 96 (2008)
pages 801-838

Rose Cuison Villazor, Associate Professor of Law
Hofstra University

Modern equal protection doctrine treats laws that make distinctions on the basis of indigeneity defined on blood quantum terms along a racial versus political paradigm. This dichotomy may be traced to Morton v. Mancari and, more recently, to Rice v. Cayetano. In Mancari, the Supreme Court held that laws that privilege members of American Indian tribes do not constitute racial discrimination because the preferences have a political purpose – to further the right of self-government of federally recognized American Indian tribes. Rice crystallized the juxtaposition of the racial from the political nature of indigeneity by invalidating a law that privileged Native Hawaiians. That law, according to the Court, used an ancestral blood requirement to construct a racial category and a racial purpose as opposed to the legally permissible political purpose of promoting the right of self-government of American Indian tribes.

Close analysis of the dichotomy between the constitutive notion of indigenous blood as either racial or political has largely escaped scholarship. An analysis deconstructing their juxtaposition is sorely needed. As recent challenges to blood quantum laws show, there remain unanswered questions about the extent to which the racialized (and thus invalid) Native Hawaiian-only voting law impact other blood quantum laws. Among the laws implicated by the dichotomy between the racial and political meaning of indigeneity are land ownership laws that privilege indigenous peoples who are not federally recognized tribes. Specifically, in some jurisdictions in the United States, including Hawaii, Alaska, and the U.S. territories, only indigenous peoples may purchase or possess property. Perhaps more problematically, these property laws define indigeneity on the basis of blood quantum. Under the contemporary race versus political meaning of blood quantum, these laws arguably violate equal protection principles because they do not fit the current framing of what constitutes political indigeneity.

Using these laws, what I collectively refer to as blood quantum land laws, as frames of reference, this Essay interrogates and criticizes the juxtaposition of the racial and political meaning of indigeneity. Specifically, the Essay examines the legal construction of political indigeneity and demonstrates how its narrowed construction would undermine these blood quantum land laws that were enacted to reverse the effects of colonialism. Consequently, this Essay calls for the liberalization of the binary racial and political paradigm by expanding equal protection law’s interpretation of the meaning of political indigeneity. Toward this end, this Essay provides an initial analysis of how to broaden the political notion of indigeneity, focusing in particular on the relationships among property, indigeneity, and the right to self-determination.

Read the entire article here.

Tribal Rights vs. Racial Justice: Was the Cherokee Nation’s expulsion of black Freedmen an act of tribal sovereignty or of racial discrimination?

The New York Times
Room for Debate
2011-09-15

Kevin Maillard, Associate Professor of Law
Syracuse University

Matthew L. M. Fletcher, Professor of Law
Michigan State University

Cara Cowan-Watts, Acting Speaker
Cherokee Nation Tribal Council

Rose Cuison Villazor, Associate Professor of Law
Hofstra University

Heather Williams, Cherokee citizen and Freedman Descendent
Cherokee Nation Entertainment Cultural Tourism Department

Carla D. Pratt, Professor of Law and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs
Pennsylvania State University, Dickinson School of Law

Tiya Miles, Professor of History and Chair of the Department of Afro-American and African Studies
University of Michigan

Joanne Barker (Lenape), Associate Professor of American Indian studies
San Francisco State University

Introduction

When the Cherokee were relocated from the South to present-day Oklahoma in the 1830s, their black slaves were moved with them. Though an 1866 treaty gave the descendants of the slaves full rights as tribal citizens, regardless of ancestry, the Cherokee Nation has tried to expel them because they lack “Indian blood.”

The battle has been long fought. A recent ruling by the Cherokee Supreme Court upheld the tribe’s right to oust 2,800 Freedmen, as they are known, and cut off their health care, food stipends and other aid in the process.

But federal officials told the tribe that they would not recognize the results of a tribal election later this month if the citizenship of the black members was not restored. Faced with a cutoff of federal aid, a tribal commission this week offered the Freedmen provisional ballots, a half-step denounced by the black members.

Is the effort to expel of people of African descent from Indian tribes an exercise of tribal sovereignty, as tribal leaders claim, or a reversion to Jim Crow, as the Freedmen argue? Kevin Noble Maillard, a professor of law at Syracuse University and a member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, organized this discussion of the issue.

Read the entire debate here.

Record-High 86% Approve of Black-White Marriages

Gallup
2011-09-12

Jeffrey M. Jones

Ninety-six percent of blacks, 84% of whites approve

PRINCETON, NJ—Americans are approaching unanimity in their views of marriages between blacks and whites, with 86% now approving of such unions. Americans’ views on interracial marriage have undergone a major transformation in the past five decades. When Gallup first asked about black-white marriages in 1958, 4% approved. More Americans disapproved than approved until 1983, and approval did not exceed the majority level until 1997….

…The latest results are based on an Aug. 4-7 USA Today/Gallup poll, which included an oversample of blacks…

Read the entire article here. View methodology, full question results, and trend data here.

Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black

Plume, an imprint of Penguin
February 1996
304 pages
5.35 x 7.95in
Paperback ISBN: 9780452275331
ePub eBook ISBN: 9781440665813
Adobe eBook ISBN: 9781440665813

Gregory Howard Williams, President
University of Cincinnati

Awards

• Los Angeles Times Book Prize
• Friends of American Writers Award: Nominee
• Melcher Book Award: Nominee

A stunning journey to the heart of the racial dilemma in this country.

Table of Contents

1. Acknowledgments
2. The Open House Cafe
3. The Midas Touch
4. “Captain of My Soul”
5. Rooster
6. Learning How to Be Niggers
7. Bob and Weave
8. “Saved”
9. Hustling
10. Politics and Race
11. The Color Line
12. Accept the Things I Cannot Change
13. Choices
14. Go for It!
15. Big Shoulders
16. Persistence
17. Teammates
18. “Born in the Wilderness and Suckled by a Boar”
19. State of Indiana v. Gregory H. Williams
20. Mike: Like a Moth to Flames
21. Tottering Kingdoms and Crumbling Empires
22. Your Truly Mother

University of Cincinnati president has a unique perspective on his life as a black man

Cleveland Plain Dealer
2011-09-11

Karen Farkas

CLEVELAND, Ohio—Gregory Williams says that in the five decades since he learned he was black and moved into a tarpaper shack with his black grandmother instead of a middle-class home with his white grandmother, the nation has made great progress in inclusion and diversity.

But much still needs to be done, the University of Cincinnati president told the audience at the City Club of Cleveland on Friday.

“Certainly there is less rigidity in America’s color line today than there was in the 1960s,” he said. “We live in a time, thankfully, where the ‘multiracial’ population is growing and barely raises an eyebrow these days. Yet all of us can be yanked back across the line by a look, a so-called ‘joke’ or a tense reception in the so-called ‘wrong’ neighborhood.”

Williams, who has been at UC for two years, spoke of his life as a black man who looks white and his views on race and several times asked “Why is it taking so long?” to speed racial healing in the nation…

…Williams, who said he came to view himself as African-American, eventually wrote an award-winning and best-selling memoir, “Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black.” He also earned numerous degrees, leading to a career in academia…

…Following his speech, a man in the audience asked why Williams didn’t try to live as a white man after he got older.

“In Indiana I was ostracized for being black, and if I abandoned those who were willing to stand by me, I’d have no principles at all,” Williams responded…

Read the entire article here.

Child Poverty at a Racial Cross Roads: Assessing Child Poverty for Children in Mono- and Multiracial Families

Colloquium Series
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Hamilton Hall 271
2011-09-21, 12:00-13:00 EDT (Local Time)

Jenifer L. Bratter, Associate Professor of Sociology
Rice University

Jenifer L. Bratter (PhD 2001, University of Texas at Austin) is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Rice University. Her research explores the implications of race and racial mixing (i.e. interracial families, multiracial identity) in the areas of family, identity, and social inequality.  Current projects focus on indicators of social well-being such as poverty, residential segregation, and health and the new ways that race is linked to these phenomena. She had been awarded the 2009 Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation for Career Enhancement to study patterns of residential segregation for mixed-race families. Dr. Bratter has recently published works appearing in Demography, Social Forces, Family Relations, Population Research and Policy Review, and several upcoming book chapters.

For more information, click here.

Choosing to be Multiracial in America: The Sociopolitical Implications of the “Check All That Apply” Approach to Race in the 2000 U.S. Census

Berkeley La Raza Law Journal
Volume 21 (2011)

Alaina R. Walker

I. INTRODUCTION

Race in America has long been a contentious subject, especially when the government has been involved. Race can mean something different to everyone, and yet, it is widely understood as having real implications and consequences. Many scholars understand that race is “a social construct[:] a social artifact, which results from a process through which social significance is attributed to some contingent attributes like skin color, and whose emergence, salience and influence can be studied and analyzed.” The government’s use of race has ranged from the horrific to the admirable, but has always been controversial. Analyzing the U.S. Census provides an interesting opportunity to discuss some of the significant roles race has played and continues to play in America. Racial data collected from the U.S. Census is currently used for the controversial purpose of furthering civil rights objectives, but some people worry that these objectives are now in danger. Due to the implementation of the “check all that apply” approach to the U.S. Census (the ability to select all races with which one identifies), critics are concerned that racial data will become convoluted and that civil rights objectives will be hindered. What is lacking from the conversation and arguably the civil rights agenda is the importance of the official recognition of multiracial identity, which the “check all that apply” approach acknowledges.

Although multiracial identity should be recognized on the U.S. Census, it is necessary to analyze how its recognition in the form of the “check all that apply”…

Read the entire article here.

Phil Wilkes Fixico to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (The only live weekly show about being racially and culturally mixed. Also, founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival) Hosted by Fanshen Cox, Heidi Durrow and Jennifer Frappier
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Episode: #225-Phil Wilkes Fixico
When: Wednesday, 2011-09-14, 21:00Z (17:00 EDT, 16:00 CDT, 14:00 PDT)

Phil Wilkes Fixico, Seminole Maroon Descendant, Creek and Cherokee Freedmen Descendant

From “Mixed Race in the Seminole Nation,” in Ethnohistory, Volume 58, Number 1 (Winter 2011):

This is a story of two hidden identities. It focuses on the family history of Phil Wilkes Fixico (aka Philip Vincent Wilkes and Pompey Bruner Fixico), a contemporary Seminole maroon descendant of mixed race who lives in Los Angeles. Phil is one-eighth Seminole Indian, one-quarter Seminole freedman, one-eighth Creek freedman, one-quarter Cherokee-freedman, and one-quarter African-American-white. His family history records that his paternal grandfather was the offspring of a Seminole Indian woman and a Seminole freedman, but that this “intermarriage” was kept secret from the Dawes Commission and the boy was enrolled as a “fullblood” Indian. This one union and the subsequent history of the family tell us a great deal about relations between Seminoles and freedmen in the Indian Territory and Oklahoma and about status and identity issues among individuals of mixed race within American society. With tragic irony, Phil’s parents also hid the identity of his biological father, echoing the story of his grandfather. Sensing family secrets and lies, young Phil experienced an identity crisis. Eventually discovering his father’s identity and his family history, Phil turned his life around. He has embraced his mixed-race heritage, connected with the Seminole maroon communities in Oklahoma, Texas, and Mexico, and become a creative and energetic tribal historian.

Selected Articles about Phil Wilkes Fixico

• Manny Otiko, “Blacks and Native Americans have deep ties,” Our Weekly: Our Truth, Our Voice, November 18, 2010.
• Darlene Donloe, “Phil Wilkes Fixico—a True Native Son,” L.A. Watts Times, March 11, 2010.
• Kevin Mulroy, “Mixed Race in the Seminole Nation,” Ethnohistory, Volume 58, Number 1 (Winter 2011).

Listen to the episode here. Download the episode here.

Family Histories of ‘Passing’ from Black to White Documented in Book

Diverse: Issues in Higher Education
2011-09-06

Katti Gray

In the summer of 1993, as American-born Daniel Sharfstein registered Blacks to cast their first ballot in race-riven South Africa, he volunteered alongside a South African woman, who professed to be as authentically African as any other Black. This, she told then college student Sharfstein, despite her family’s decades-old designation as Coloured, a mixed-race label that elevated her clan above Blacks in the old White-run government’s hierarchy of peoples.
 
Though being Coloured insulated her from brutalities apartheid reserved for the so-called purely Black, she was, physically, hard to distinguish from the Black activists who had dominated the anti-apartheid movement, said Dr. Sharfstein, now 38 and a Vanderbilt University law professor. She was dark-skinned, and wore her hair Afrocentrically-braided.
 
That her family would choose to be misclassified racially was both fascinating and bewildering, Sharfstein said. “I came home and was immediately interested in the question of whether the same thing had happened here,” said Sharfstein, who holds a law degree from Yale, and a degree in history, literature and Afro-American studies from Harvard.
 
His book, The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White, is the outgrowth of parallels Sharfstein drew between apartheid’s racial distortions and those of his own native land.
 
With this nation’s state-by-state variations on how many drops of Black blood legally made a person Black as both a backdrop and core of the 395-page tome, Sharfstein explores the human, financial and ephemeral costs of morphing from an imposed Blackness—notwithstanding one’s light skin, aquiline facial features and straight hair—to live as White…

…Cape Cod, Mass., is where Isabel Wall Whittemore’s forebears ended up.
 
“Until I read [Sharfstein’s] book, I didn’t realize that, in my mom’s day, 1/16 [of Black blood] was considered Colored,” said Whittemore, 74, now residing in Hickory Flat, Miss., with her oldest daughter Lisa Colby. “To tell you the truth… I’ve always gone as Caucasian. I had no reason not to. I’d love to know what I should be calling myself now, but it doesn’t matter to me either way… Race isn’t important.”
 
Roughly a decade before the February 2011 release of Sharfstein’s book, a homework assignment for Colby’s daughter revealed their place on the branches of O.S.B. Wall’s family tree. “I’ve met a lot of cousins who I didn’t know,” Colby said. “I, myself, think this is great … in terms of the history. My great, great-grandfather was able to come up from being a slave to being a lawyer.”
 
Not everyone who’s learned of their ties to Wall has been so effusive. One informed Sharfstein that “he’d become more racist since learning about his descent than ever before,” Sharfstein said. “Initially, he was so intent on maintaining his White identity—and nothing makes you more ‘White’ than hating Black people. That’s my inference.”…

Read the entire article here.

Fatal Invention: Race and Science

The Brian Lehrer Show
WNYC
Monday, 2011-08-15

Brian Lehrer, Host

Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology; Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights
University of Pennsylvania

Dorothy Roberts, Kirkland & Ellis professor and faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, and author of Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics and Big Business Re-create Race In the Twenty-First Century, discusses how the findings of the Human Genome Project a decade ago stands in contrast to racial definitions in medicine and technology.

Download the audio here (00:13:04).