Mixed Race Studies

In full agreement with this suggestion of glandular disturbance is the general opinion of biologists that the human hybrid shows a typical instability in mental and moral respects—a want of balance.  His motives and actions are incalculable, his impulses stronger that his self-control. I feel more and more convinced that the inmates of our prisons and asylums are to a large extent recruited from these types of mixed race, who numbers are constantly rising on account of increasing intercourse between populations from all parts of the world.

Jon Alfred Mjöen, “Race-crossing and glands: Some human hybrids and their parent stocks,” The Eugenics Review, Volume 23, Number 1, (April 1931) 31-40.

It is known that neither the Indian nor Negro contends in dignity and esteem with the Spaniard; nor do any of the others envy the lot of the Negro, who is the “most dispirited and despised”. […] It is held as systematic that a Spaniard and an Indian produce a mestizo; a mestizo and a Spaniard, a castizo; and a castizo and a Spaniard, a Spaniard. It is agreed that from a Spaniard and a Negro a mulatto is born; from a mulatto and a Spaniard, a morisco; from a morisco and a Spaniard, a torna atrás; and from a torna atrás and a Spaniard, a tente en el aire. The same thing happens from the union of a Negro and Indian, the descent begins as follows: Negro and Indian produce a lobo; lobo and Indian, a chino; and chino and Indian, an albarazado, all of which incline towards the mulatto. [For more terms, see here.]

Pedro Alonso O’Crowley, 1774

There is a smugness associated with this valorization of contemporary racial mixture that is palpable if one is not party to the celebration, a smugness that is a complement to the rejection of the mulatto of history that I considered toward the end of Chapter 6.  It is in that regard a double insult to American mulattoes today and to their voiceless precursors of past decades and centuries.  I am therefore moved to provide a name for what has thus far been only a feeling, something I have responded to and reacted against, but until now has remained nameless.  I therefore introduce the concept of miscentrism, by which I mean an ideology that holds multiraciality to be superior to all monoraces with the exception, naturally, of whites.  This exception is necessary to note, for the American Multiracial Identity Movement is invested at a deep philosophical level in the perpetuation and the veneration of whiteness as purity and superiority.  In a perverse way, the American Multiracial Identity Movement’s clear stances of mulattophobia and Negrophobia are counterpoised against its own miscentrism in a kind of isometric logical fallacy.

Rainier Spencer, Reproducing Race: The Paradox of Generation Mix, (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Reinner, 2011), 167.

Achin surveyed hundreds of biracial adolescents through MySpace and Facebook, personal connections, and random interviews, asking probing personal questions of how they viewed themselves. She found that their responses clustered into five categories of identity: “Monoracials,” who defined themselves predominantly by a primary peer group; “Bidentifiers,” who identify confidently with more than one racial identity; “Sliders,” who were able to identify with whatever group in which they found themselves; “Raceless,” who refused to identify with any race, but prefer race-neutral descriptors such as “American”; and “Partial People,” who identify themselves as half a person, mostly as half-white, rarely as half-black.

Sally Holm, “CAMD Scholars Take On Variety of Complex Racial Issues in MLK Jr. Day Presentations,” Phillips Academy News, January 28, 2008.

Finally, while his name does not appear in the text or bibliography, I want to acknowledge the deep debt I owe to Steven Riley, who maintains the mixed-race scholarly website, “Mixed Race Studies: Scholarly Perspectives on the Mixed Race Experience” (http://www.MixedRaceStudies.org), which is the most comprehensive and objective clearinghouse for scholarly publications related to critical mixed-race theory of which I am aware.  It is through this very robust resource that I came across a goodly number of scholarly references I cite in this book.

Rainier Spencer, Reproducing Race: The Paradox of Generation Mix. (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Reinner Publishers, Inc., 2011), x.

The offspring of interracial unions were threatening to whites primarily because they blurred the lines between what many of them understood to be a naturally superior white race and a naturally inferior black race. As long as there was a clear distinction between the two racial categories—in other words, as long as the two categories could be thought to be mutually exclusive—then the hierarchical racial regimes represented first by slavery, and later by legal segregation, could be more effectively defended. The existence of interracial children destabilized and threatened the understanding of racial groups as essentialized categories that existed prior to, and independent of, human norms and understandings. To put it differently, interracial children showed that racial categories, seemingly distinct and immutable, were instead highly malleable. Therefore, from a white supremacy perspective, it was important to try to deter the creation of interracial children as much as possible, and the ban on interracial marriage was a crucial means to attaining that goal.

Carlos A. Ball, “The Blurring of the Lines: Children and Bans on Interrracial Unions and Same-Sex Marriages,” Fordham Law Review, Volume 76, Number 6 (2008): 2733-2770.

Black and white sexual pairings, therefore, became a widespread phenomenon that originated from a demographic imbalance, but expanded and developed through a cultural fetishization of women of color. The islands, built upon complex systems of violence and sexual control, promoted and legitimated interracial relationships. Caribbean visitors certainly held this impression. Pierre McCallum emphasized the importance of finding a lover of color in Trinidad: “On the arrival of the European, his first object is, to look out for a mistress, either of the black, yellow, or livid kind.” “As for the native creole,” McCallum continued, “a female companion is provided for him from among the slaves of the family, at an early age, to prevent his going astray to increase the stock of his neighbours.” McCallum’s account indicates the ubiquity of West Indian miscegenation, its role as a measure of status, and its sanction by all members of society, including relatives. Not only did family members support such behavior, but they promoted it within a plantation endogamy to increase further slave holdings – albeit enslaved kin. Such descriptions reveal a West Indian system perfectly at ease with interracial pairings, if not encouraging of them. This sexual tolerance dramatically grew the islands’ population of color…

…The culture of miscegenation that developed in the British West Indies came from demographic conditions, as well as customary promotions of common practice. Although white men grossly outnumbered white women in most Caribbean islands, white families still survived. Indeed, white islanders’ seemingly universal engagement with women of color belied actual gender imbalances within their populations. Cross-racial relations became a part of West Indian culture; married and single men alike had their mistresses of color. For imperial observers, this confirmed long-standing associations between the West Indies and anarchic morality. The mistress of color, so often portrayed in travel accounts and expositions, visibly embodied island vice. British commentary condemned her, her lover, and West Indian society as a whole. The men in these relationships were, after all, not simply colonial “others,” but friends and relatives of Britons back home.

Daniel Alan Livesay, “Children of Uncertain Fortune: Mixed-Race Migration from the West Indies to Britain, 1750-1820” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2010) pages 29-30 .

It is impossible to evaluate the impact of multiracial politics without attention to historical and social contexts.  Without such contexts, it is tempting to conclude, as many have, that the collective efforts of multiracials are inherently progressive, inherently regressive, or even irrelevant.  Appearing on the Oprah Winfrey show, for example, a black/white woman explains to the audience that as a multiracial person she can be a bridge to promote understanding between racial groups.  In hearings over changes to racial classification, opponents to the possibility of the state enumerating mixed descent persons invoke the specter of apartheid South Africa, suggesting that new categories will create an escape hatch from blackness.  At around the same time, some scholars claim that Asian outmarriage reflects Asian self-hatred and is an attempt to leave behind a stigmatized group.  Still others state that the issue is “old news,” not important enough time commenting on it.

DaCosta, Kimberly McClain, Making Multiracials: State, Family, and Market in the Redrawing of the Color Line, (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2007), 174.

“I am an African American,” says Duana Fullwiley, “but in parts of Africa, I am white.” To do fieldwork as a medical anthropologist in Senegal, she says, “I take a plane to France, a seven- to eight-hour ride. My race changes as I cross the Atlantic. There, I say, ‘Je suis noire,’ and they say, ‘Oh, okay—métisse—you are mixed.’ Then I fly another six to seven hours to Senegal, and I am white. In the space of a day, I can change from African American, to métisse, to tubaab [Wolof for “white/European”]. This is not a joke, or something to laugh at, or to take lightly. It is the kind of social recognition that even two-year-olds who can barely speak understand. ‘Tubaab,’ they say when they greet me.” —Duana Fullwiley

“Race in a Genetic World,” Harvard Magazine, Volume 110, Number 5 (May-June, 2008): http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/05/race-in-a-genetic-world.html.

…There is a lot to unpack and a lot of mistruths around this historical concept of mixed race.  I’m 40 years of age and some young people ask me if there are any people that are older than me who are mixed race. Because in their minds people who are mixed race are usually, you know, under 40 years of age. So historically they haven’t got any context to see that people have been mixing for hundreds and hundreds of years.  And that kind of scares me…

Bradley Lincoln of (mix-d:), Interview on Mixed Chicks Chat. January 27, 2010.