Mixed Race Studies

Subverting racial labels is not the same as subverting racism.

Eric Liu, “Blood Simple: The politics of miscegenation,” Slate Magazine, August 22, 1996. http://www.slate.com/id/2398/.

In conclusion, then, mulattoes may be viewed as the apotheosis, or as the nadir, of Afro-American strength—as the hope or despair of the future. In this regard, these recent studies often differ profoundly. However, they do demonstrate significant points of agreement regarding the historical roots and role of Americans of mixed black-white ancestry—regarding their growing predominance within Afro-America itself, and regarding the very early origins of their distinctiveness. Under certain historical circumstances, their distinctiveness from black Americans was viewed and treated as an asset; under different circumstances it became a liability, particularly when and where white supremacy was threatened. During the Jim Crow era the one-drop ideology was used as a weapon to put them back in place—to prevent the growth of this “mongrelized race” which was neither white nor black. But ironically, it was this oppression which drove mulattoes to identify themselves with black Americans, thereby strengthening Afro-American solidarity and self-assertion…

Patricia Morton, “From Invisible Man to ‘New People’: The Recent Discovery of American Mulattoes,” Phylon (1960-), Volume 46, Number 2 (1985): 106-122.

“One of the things that interested me in the last campaign, was the byplay having to do with Obama’s racial origins. It struck me that the press and the public generally reserve the ‘mixed race’ label for the offspring of racially mixed marriages. But there is a paradox here. Obama, half black and half white, is, genetically speaking, not much whiter than I am, even though my nearest white forebears were Virginia slave owners who lived and died in the 19th century. Similarly, there are people who think of themselves as black who are, genetically speaking, 70 percent white or more.”…

Brent Staples, quoted in “Up Front: Brent Staples,” The New York Times, September 2, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/books/review/up-front-brent-staples.html.

Miscegenation produced Eurasian children that were not European or Asian; they were a people without an identity that had the ability to change the European established racial hierarchy. Christina Firpo mentions that in Vietnam, Eurasians were clearly recognizable as being of French descent. But the French viewed this as a threat to their racial purity and superiority. A British travelogue writer noticed that Eurasians were divided amongst themselves based on how closely they resembled Europeans. The Eurasians with the skin tones and facial features that more closely resembled those of Europeans had higher social statuses than those that had features that more closely resembled Southeast Asians. ‘This made it seem like there were several racial categories within the Eurasian community. This confusion over racial hierarchies within the Eurasian community created confusion among the British. The British were confused as to how to categorize Eurasians racially. The British had established a strict racial hierarchy. They were also convinced that they would be able to maintain a racial purity amongst the Europeans. So they were not prepared when British men began to participate in miscegenation and producing another race. As Ann Stoler put it, Eurasians “straddled the divide” between colonizers and colonized. This “divide” blurred some of the racial lines between Europeans and Southeast Asians, which terrified the British.

Katrina Chludzinski, “The Fear of Colonial Miscegenation in the British Colonies of Southeast Asia,” The Forum: Cal Poly’s Journal of History, Volume 1, Issue 1, Article 8: 54-64.

The increasing, uncritical media attention that both [Heidi] Durrow’s work and mixed-race identity have received lately gives me pause. Accepting and embracing a mixed-race identity hardly reveals racial progress. As it is currently constructed, mixed-race identity does not dismantle racial hierarchies. Rather, it reiterates white supremacy by attempting to etch a space for itself somewhere under whiteness–which it knows it can never access–and definitely above blackness. Even claiming a mixed-race identity requires enough skin privilege to compel the (unscrupulous) gazer to ask, “What are you?”

Summer McDonald, “Canon Fodder: ‘The Girl Who Fell From the Sky’ and the Problem of Mixed-Race Identity,” Specter Magazine: Ghost+Blog, August 18, 2011.

The presence of Eurasian images in fashion representations and their absence from finance representations draw attention to the historical origins, cultural trajectories and ambivalence of meaning associated with ‘raced’ and sexed representations. Although the inclusion of Asian and Eurasian women may be intended to offset their previous absence and secure a wider multicultural appeal, they inadvertently replay processes of racialisation and sexualization. This is because they incite desires for, and identifications with, White/Western/Anglo identities authorised by essentialist and quasi-biological discourses of racialisation and sexualization.

Julie Matthews, “Deconstructing the Visual: The Diasporic Hybridity of Asian and Eurasian Female Images,” Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context, Issue 8, October 2002.

I think that what people were angry about was that he [President Obama] was not willing to be a symbol for multiracial people. But that’s not his job, in my opinion. His job is to be President of the United States. And that includes all of us, mixed, not mixed or whatever.  And so, really, you know, I didn’t have a problem with him identifying as black.  And I think that makes sense for who he was, how he grew up, for the family that he has today. And to look on any one person as somebody that needs to identify in a particular way in order for them to feel better about themselves, I think that says more about the people who are upset than about the President or whomever else we’re condemning for their choice.

Ulli K. Ryder, “Roundtable with Fanshen Cox, Dr. Ulli Ryder, and Dr. Marcia Dawkins,” Blogtalk Radio (Hosted by Michelle McCrary of Is That Your Child?), August 9, 2011. (00:35:06 – 00:36:06).  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/isthatyourchild/2011/08/09/ityc-hosts-podcast-roundtable-with-fanshen-cox-dr-ulli-ryd.

In contrast to Blacks and Asians, anti-miscegenation laws were seldom applied to Native Americans and never mentioned Latinos. The reasons for the lenient treatment of Latinos and Native Americans are quite similar. In both cases, these groups first came into contact with Whites when frontiers were being settled. At the outset, Whites had much to gain by forming friendly alliances with Indian tribes or Mexican natives. On occasion, these alliances could be cemented through intermarriage. Consider, for example, the Anglo settlers who arrived in northern Mexico to make their fortunes in the early to mid-1800s. Mexico, newly freed from Spanish rule, hoped to capitalize on the sparsely populated furthermost reaches of its territory by attracting foreign investors. However, Mexican officials did not want Anglos simply to come to their country, exploit the land, and leave with their fortunes. Instead, the government wanted to encourage permanent settlement, and an excellent way to do this was to reward those who put down roots there. As a result, Mexico offered naturalization opportunities and corresponding trade advantages to Anglos who married Mexican women. Indeed, the expectation was that Anglo settlers would be loyal to Mexican wives, not manipulate or abandon them after using them to personal advantage…

Rachel F. Moran, “Love with a Proper Stranger: What Anti-Miscegenation Laws Can Tell Us About the Meaning of Race, Sex, and Marriage,” Hofstra Law Review, Volume 32, Issue 4, (2004): 1663-1679.

Individuals and groups today in 2011 that insist and demand we all tell our whole “racial truth,” are no less misguided and insidious than the Virginians who insisted and demanded “racial integrity” in 1924.

Steven F. Riley, “Don’t Pass on Context: The Importance of Academic Discourses in Contemporary Discussions on the Multiracial Experience,” (paper presented at the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, Los Angeles, California, June 11, 2011).

I have the right to identify myself differently than strangers expect me to identify.
I have the right to identify myself differently than how my parents identify me.
I have the right to identify myself differently than my brothers and sisters.
I have the right to identify myself differently in different situations…

Fanshen Cox. “Mixed Minute: Bill of Rights for People of Mixed Heritage” (from Maria P. P. Root’s “Bill of Rights for People of Mixed Heritage”),” You Tube, February 27, 2009. 00:00:28-00:00:43. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZgELKdb8Ns.

He’s [SilverSpringSteve] is saying that [Barack] Obama says “he is a black man with a white mother.”

Yes… I think as we continue to speak that way… we will see though, the fallacy in saying that a “black man with a white mother” doesn’t work either. And that works for him now in this day and age, and the way he grew up and the way he had to grow up. But I don’t think it’s something we should applaud for the future or encourage for the future.

Fanshen Cox. “Episode 204: Mixed Bag,” Mixed Chicks Chat, May 5, 2011. 00:27:16-00:27:49. http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-34257/TS-482022.mp3.