Mixed Race Studies

At last we breathe easier. The fiat has gone forth that in Georgia crime shall not go unwhipt of justice, nor shall moral rottenness reek in our midst. Our State will not be a doggery for the depraved, the corrupt, and the vicious of other States. In our midst miscegenation, even when sanctioned by the unholy statutes of other States, shall be crushed out, trampled under foot, and the guilty parties shall meet with sure, certain, condign punishment.

The cases which have been before the District Court for two days past have excited, not interest alone, but deep concern in the minds of our citizens. “Was this hydra-headed monster of corruption to be declared legal? “Was our sense of morality to be insulted? Was the marriage relation to be disgraced and rendered infamous? Were we to be compelled to see festering corruption walking about on the streets, jostling against us in the crowd, staring at us in the public places? These were the questions which arose and perplexed our citizens, and the threatened appeal to United States authority to override our laws, our customs, our sense of moral decency, added a strong feeling to them.

But Judge Lawrence and an impartial jury have spoken. Such things shall not exist. Let those who would disgrace humanity go to Tennessee, go to Massachusetts, go wherever corrupt and infamous lawmakers will protect them; but there is no place for them in Georgia. The ball is in motion, the law will be enforced strictly and to the very letter, and its boa-constrictor folds are now tightening around the neck of crime and corruption. Let it be proclaimed abroad that miscegenation cannot exist in Georgia.

“The District Court: The Miscegenationists on Trial—Able Argument of Mr. Irwin—The Ku-Klux Bill Threatened,” The Atlanta Weekly Sun, (August 16, 1871). (Source: Georgia Historic Newspapers). http://atlnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/atlnewspapers/view?docId=news/aws1871/aws1871-0079.xml.

The antiblack racism in the multiracial movement from the 1990s did not fit with my multiracial college activism, and yet it stuck with me. It unsettled me to understand how politicians and the media manipulated multiracialism into an alignment of “my people” with the politics of the Far Right. Understanding the split dividing national multiracial advocacy groups from college-based activists helped me see why some of my closest friends around the country, who were mixed black and white and who grew up with close ties to African American communities, didn’t want anything to do with this multiracial thing. Why weren’t their stories a part of the burgeoning narrative of mixed-race? Other questions loomed for me: In our celebrations of mixed-race, were we excluding or dismissing the experiences, histories, and racializations of other minoritized communities? How could multiracialism work to dismantle and not fortify the privileges of whiteness? How could we articulate our agenda in a way that might forge cross-racial coalitions, instead of separations?

Ralina L. Joseph, Transcending Blackness: From the New Millennium Mulatta to the Exceptional Multiracial, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012), xvii.

In this work, the terms “colored” and “negro” have been used indiscriminately, but I have made the more extended use of the former, since the type of the pure negro is rarely met with. The race is so hopelessly mixed that it is difficult to arrive at a clear definition, and the term “colored” will probably serve as well as the awkward phrase, “persons of African descent.”

Of the original African type few traces remain, and the race is largely a cross between the African and the white male; for no considerable crossing of negroes with white females has ever taken place. The instances where white women have married colored men are very rare and the few cases that occur cannot possibly have affected the traits and tendencies of the race. On the other hand, the infusion of white blood, through white males, has been widespread, and the original type of the African has almost completely disappeared. A small settlement near Mobile, Ala., a few years ago was asserted to have preserved the purity of the race: but I am informed by Dr. D. T. Rogers, the health officer of Mobile, that this is no longer true. It is therefore a question of great importance to know what influence, favorable or otherwise, the infusion of white blood has had on the physical, moral and mental characteristics of the race. It is of further importance to ascertain, if possible, whether there is a decided tendency towards a mixture of the two races, and if so, whether this tendency is in the direction of lawful marriage or of concubinage and prostitution.

Frederick L. Hoffman, “The Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro,” Publications of the American Economic Association, Volume 11, Numbers 1/3 (Jan. – Mar. – May, 1896): 177-178. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2560438.

Public records in the office of the Bureau of Vital Statistics, and in the State Library, indicate that there does not exist today a descendant of Virginia ancestors claiming to be an Indian who is unmixed with negro blood.

W. A. [Walter Ashby] Plecker, Circular Letter to “Local Registrars, Clerks, Legislators, and others responsible for, and interested in, the prevention of racial intermixture,” Commonwealth of Virginia, Bureau of Vital Statistics, December 1943. (Source: Rockbridge County (Va.) Clerk’s Correspondence, 1912-1943. Local Government Records Collection, Rockbridge County Court Records. The Library of Virginia. 10-0878-003). http://lva.omeka.net/items/show/63.

Choice—especially around identity—is a fascinating subject in and of itself. How we choose to identify is intensely personal for many, and perhaps particularly perplexing for some Mixed-race identified people, as it inherently calls into question our notions of “race”. Having said that, I can only speak for myself, and I have chosen to identify as Black-Mixed. Although how I have identified in the past has evolved, and will most like continue to do so into the future, I have always held my Blackness as the centre of gravity—the place from which all my many other identities flow.

Rema Tavares, “A Curious Confluence: Where Racism & Privilege Collide,” (1)ne Drop Project. (December 20, 2012). http://1nedrop.com/a-curious-confluence-where-racism-privilege-collide-by-rema-tavares/.

I believe that identity is two-fold—how we view ourselves and how others view us. And these views are informed by the racialized and sexualized violence of our past. To talk about contemporary identity also involves talking about the history of race in this country. There is a reason that Obama identifies as black not biracial, much of it has to do with society seeing him as first and foremost a black man. How can we understand and move this country toward real progress if we ignore race, and how as mixed race individuals can we deconstruct categories all together, rather than just create new ones?

Lindsay C. Harris, “The Color of Colorblind: Exploring Mixed Race Identity,” Vitamin W: Your Daily Dose of Women’s News, Philanthropy & Business, (December 12, 2012). http://vitaminw.co/society/color-colorblind-exploring-mixed-race-identity.

The question of course which naturally suggests itself to every right-minded white man and woman, is. Where is this thing to end? Whither are we tending? What is to be done to stop this most unnatural and detestable movement. For it is as plain as a pikestaff that if it continues, there will be soon no whites left in this once great and prosperous country. We shall all be mulattoes, and be afflicted with all the peculiarities both mental and physical of that unhappy race. The signs of this great and terrible change already begin to make themselves manifest in our streets; for the most careless observer who walks down Broadway, can hardly fail to observe the appearance on a vast number of faces of the well-known brownish tinge. Let that tinge once become general, and then “farewell, a long farewell to all our whiteness!”

“What Are We Coming To, and When Shall We Reach It?,” The New York Times, March 26, 1864. http://www.nytimes.com/1864/03/26/news/what-are-we-coming-to-and-when-shall-we-reach-it.html.

Although mixed marriages, and mixed racial identities, are also rising rapidly in the United States, they are still infrequent by British standards: around 10% of African Americans are in mixed marriages, compared to “over 25%” for black Caribbean Britons and “over 40%” for British born black Caribbeans. Traditionally, American racial identity has been defined by the “one drop” rule: those with any black heritage are seen by others—and come to see themselves—as black. Some of America’s most prominent black figures fit this pattern: both Barack Obama and Colin Powell are children of mixed relationships between a black immigrant husband and a white American wife. Both have defined themselves as black, and married black partners. This may be changing—self-identification as mixed is rising in the United States, whose Census bureau also now officially acknowledges it—but contrary to popular perceptions America lags behind Britain in rates of mixing and, arguably, in acknowledging and discussing mixed identity.

Rob Ford, “The melting pot generation: How Britain became more relaxed on race,” Brisith Future, (December 12, 2012): 6. http://www.britishfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/The-melting-pot-generation.pdf.

Leading academics say there are some signs that Britain is the real melting pot these days, with people from ethnic minorities far more likely to marry someone from the white majority than in the US, and Britons far more comfortable calling themselves mixed-race than they would be in the United States.

Rachael Jolley, “The melting pot generation: How Britain became more relaxed on race,” Brisith Future, (December 12, 2012): 8. http://www.britishfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/The-melting-pot-generation.pdf.

So while it is important to understand self-identification in thinking about race and ethnicity, people cannot simply choose an identity of their own making, nor can they escape the views and prejudices in others in navigating the world.

Dr. Omar Khan, “Who are we? Census 2011 reports on ethnicity in the UK,” Runnymede Trust: Intelligence for a multi-ethnic Britain, (December 11, 2012). http://www.runnymedetrust.org/blog/188/359/Who-are-we-Census-2011-reports-on-ethnicity-in-the-UK.html