Mixed Race Studies

The Hybrid in Hawaii as a Marginal Man

American Journal of Sociology
Volume 39, Number 4 (January 1934)
pages 459-468

William C. Smith
William Jewell College

Several factors conspire to make the hybrid in Hawaii occupy a position markedly different from that of the mixed-blood in other areas. The relative absence of race prejudice on the part of the Hawaiians has created an atmosphere which is favorable both to intermarriage and to persons of mixed blood. There are certain differences between the several groups. The Chinese-Hawaiian is, by consensus, a superior product and is accorded a high status. The Caucasian-Hawaiian is given a lower rating and consequently is more sensitive and self-conscious. There is a considerable group of multiple hybrids, the results of several crosses. These tend to form a group of their own since they cannot readily attach themselves to any of the pure-blood groups as do the dual hybrids. The mixed-bloods of all sorts are drawn together, and within this group there is little hesitancy with reference to intermarriage. This entire group mingles rather freely with the Hawaiians, but there is considerable social distance between them and the Nordics. The hybrid plays an important role in the life of Hawaii. As a participant in two or more cultures he acts as an intermediary and interpreter. The presence of a considerable number of hybrids has been responsible for the relative absence of race prejudice. The hybrids are increasing in numbers and in importance, and it is in the minds of these persons that the conflicts and fusions of culture are taking place. To understand fully the life of Hawaii, attention must be directed to this marginal group.

A study of the hybrids, or racial crosses, in the Hawaiian Islands is interesting because of the contact of so many racial and cultural groups. They constitute one of the major population groups of the Territory. According to the Census of 1930 there are 12,592 Asiatic-Hawaiians and 15,632 Caucasian-Hawaiians out of a total population of 368,336. In addition there are a number of Asiatic-Caucasians and other crosses distributed among the various ancestral groups.

The situation of the hybrids in Hawaii differs markedly from that of the Eurasian in India or the mulatto in continental United States. They are not all in the same situation, however, for there are certain differences in the treatment accorded the various crosses. In the main they are not sensitive as to their mixed ancestry. It is not at all unusual to hear someone say, “I am of mixed blood, and I am proud of it.”

Several factors determine their status in Hawaii. For several centuries the Hawaiians had lived in isolation, which precluded the cultivation of prejudices. When Europeans began to make frequent…

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Lone mothers of mixed racial and ethnic children in Britain: Comparing experiences of social attitudes and support in the 1960s and 2000s

Women’s Studies International Forum
Volume 34, Issue 6, November-December 2011
Pages 530-538
DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2011.06.007

Rosalind Edwards, Professor of Sociology
University of Southampton

Chamion Cabellero, Senior Research Fellow
Social Capital Research Group
London South Bank University

This article places side-by-side the views from lone mothers bringing up children from mixed racial and ethnic backgrounds in mid-1960s and early 2000s Britain, to consider whether the sorts of social attitudes and support these mothers experienced have changed or persisted over the past half century. The analysis compares and contrasts the general social and official attitudes that lone mothers of mixed children feel that they encounter, the support they receive from the fathers of their children, and their relationships with their own and the father’s wider family, the neighbourhood and friendship networks they draw on, and the formal supports available to them across time. The article concludes by considering some indicative trajectories of change and constancy that looking at these social attitudes and supports reveals, around negative assessments and their social expression, expectations of fathers, the availability of wider family, and the importance of informal daily support from other mothers in the same situation.

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Blood Politics: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma

University of California Press
March 2002
267 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9780520230972

Circe Dawn Sturm, Associate Professor of Anthropology
University of Texas, Austin

• Finalist in the Non-fiction category of the Oklahoma Book Awards, Oklahoma Center for the Book
• 2002 Outstanding Book on Oklahoma History, Oklahoma Historical Society

Circe Sturm takes a bold and original approach to one of the most highly charged and important issues in the United States today: race and national identity. Focusing on the Oklahoma Cherokee, she examines how Cherokee identity is socially and politically constructed, and how that process is embedded in ideas of blood, color, and race. Not quite a century ago, blood degree varied among Cherokee citizens from full blood to 1/256, but today the range is far greater—from full blood to 1/2048. This trend raises questions about the symbolic significance of blood and the degree to which blood connections can stretch and still carry a sense of legitimacy. It also raises questions about how much racial blending can occur before Cherokees cease to be identified as a distinct people and what danger is posed to Cherokee sovereignty if the federal government continues to identify Cherokees and other Native Americans on a racial basis. Combining contemporary ethnography and ethnohistory, Sturm’s sophisticated and insightful analysis probes the intersection of race and national identity, the process of nation formation, and the dangers in linking racial and national identities.

Table of Contents

• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter One. Opening
• Chapter Two. Blood, Culture, and Race: Cherokee Politics and Identity in the Eighteenth Century
• Chapter Three. Race as Nation, Race as Blood Quantum: The Racial Politics of Cherokee Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century
• Chapter Four. Law of Blood, Politics of Nation: The Political Foundations of Racial Rule in the Cherokee Nation, 1907-2000
• Chapter Five. Social Classification and Racial Contestation: Local Non-National Interpretations of Cherokee Identity
• Chapter Six. Blood and Marriage: The Interplay of Kinship, Race, and Power in Traditional Cherokee Communities
• Chapter Seven. Challenging the Color Line: The Trials and Tribulations of the Cherokee Freedmen
• Chapter Eight. Closing
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

Miscegenation in South Africa

Cahiers d’études africaines
Volume 1, Number 4 (1960)
pages 68-84
DOI: 10.3406/cea.1960.3680

Pierre L. Van Den Berghe
University of Natal

A number of related factors make the Union of South Africa an ideal object of investigation in the field of miscegenation. The exceptionally virulent brand of racism that has developed in South Africa since the beginning of the 2oth century was accompanied by an increasingly morbid fear of miscegenation unparalleled in intensity anywhere else in the world. As consequence of this miscegenophobia South Africa went further than any other country in recent times in prohibiting by law all sexual relations whether marital or non-marital between whites and non-whites. Finally the South African government in its concern over bastardization provides the social scientist with the best data on inter-racial marriage and concubinage of any country known to the author.

The history of miscegenation in South Africa is as old as the first permanent Dutch settlement at the Cape in 1652. In the first few decades, some instances of marriage between Dutchmen and christianized Hottentot women took place as well as extensive non-marital relations between masters and female slaves. In the 1670’s, an estimated 3/4 of all children of female slaves had white fathers. With the rise of colour prejudice in the latter decades of the 17th century, legal unions of whites and non-whites became rare. A 1685 law prohibited marriage between white men and slave women; some legal unions of white men with free women of colour continued to take place, but with decreasing frequency. Miscegenation however, continued to flourish in the form common to most slave societies namely institutionalized concubinage between white men and non-white women.

The salient fact in the early history of miscegenation in South Africa is that while intermarriage became rapidly condemned, extra marital relations between white men and women of colour were not only tolerated, but even looked upon with amusement The slave lodge of the Dutch East India Company at the Cape was wide-open brothel of which Mentzel gives an interesting account:

“Female slaves are always ready to offer their bodies for trifle; and towards evening one can see string of soldiers and sailors entering the lodge where they misspend their time until the clock strikes 9… The Company does nothing to prevent this promiscuous intercourse since, for one thing it tends to multiply the slave population and does away with the necessity of importing fresh slaves. Three or four generations of this admixture for the daughters follow their footsteps have produced a half-caste population—a mestizo class—but a slight shade darker than some Europeans.”

Among the European bourgeoisie, interracial concubinage was also common:

“Boys who, through, force of circumstances have to remain at home during these impressionable years between 16 and 21 more often than not commit some folly, and get entangled with handsome slave-girl belonging to the household. These affairs are not regarded as very serious… the offence is venial in the public estimation. It does not hurt the prospects; his escapade is source of amusement, and he is dubbed young fellow who has shown the stuff he is made of.”

British visitor to the Cape in the beginning of the 19th century tells that slave girls were routinely assigned to the bedroom of white guests to enliven the latters’ nights. Slave girls were “loaned out” to Europeans by their masters:

“Female slaves sometimes live with Europeans as husband and wife with the permission of their masters who benefit in two ways: the cost of upkeep of the slave is reduced through the presents she receives from the man, and her children are the property of her master since children of female slaves are themselves slaves… In this manner the slave population is always increasing.”

Similarly, the whites interbred extensively with the nominally free Hottentots. Vaillant estimates the number of Bastards (for such was the contemporary designation of white-Hottentot half-breeds) in 1780’s as 1/6 of the inhabitants of the whole Cape Colony. In the first half of the 19th century, entire communities of Bastards settled along the Orange River where they established autonomous “states”. The offspring of these white-slave and white-Hottentot unions, as well as interbreeding between slaves and Hottentots gave rise to the people known today as the “Cape Coloureds”.

In this early period then, miscegenation was not only common but sanctioned so long as it took the form of concubinage between higher-status men and lower-status women. There was no trace of feeling of horror against miscegenation per se. The main concern of the dominant white group was the preservation of its superior status, and the latter was left unthreatened by master-slave concubinage. Intermarriage on the other hand, entailed measure of social equality and was consequently opposed…

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Beyond poverty: the Negro and the Mulatto in Brazil

Journal de la Société des Américanistes
Volume 58 (1969)
pages 121-137
DOI: 10.3406/jsa.1969.2100

Florestan Fernandes

This paper was first presented, in a condensed version, at the seminars on “Minorities in Latin America and the United States”, (The College of the Finger Lakes, Corning, New York, December 5, 1969).

1. Introduction :

The most impressive aspect of the racial situation in Brazil appears under the trenchant denial of the existence of any “color” or “racial” problem. Racial prejudice and discrimination, as racial segregation, are seen as a sort of sin and as dishonorable behavior. Thus, we have two different levels of reality perception and of action connected with “color” and “race”: first, overt, in which racial equality and racial democracy are supposed and proclaimed; second, covert, in which collateral functions perform through, below and beyond the social stratification.

This overlay is not exclusive to race relations. It appears in other levels of social life. In the case of race relations it emerges as a clear product from the prevailing racial ideology and racial Utopia, both built during slavery by the white-dominant stratum—the rural and urban masters. Slavery was not in conflict with the Portuguese law and cultural tradition. The Roman law offered to the crown ordinances the elements with which it would be possible to classify the “Indians” or the “Africans” as things, as moveable property, and establish the social transmission of social position through the mother (according to the principle partus sequitur ventrem), deny to the slave any human condition (servus personam non habet, etc.) On the other hand, slavery was practiced on a small scale in Lisbon, and was attempted in Acores, Madeira, Cabo Verde and Sâo Tome, pioneering the modern plantation system. But slavery was in conflict with religion and the mores created by the Catholic conception of the world. This conflict, of a moral nature, did not give to the slave, in general, a better condition and more human treatment, as Frank Tannebaum believed. It only brought about a tendency to disguise things, separating the permissive from the real being.

Nevertheless, Brazil has a good intellectual tradition of penetrating, realistic, and unmasking objective knowledge of the racial situation. First of all, the conservative pride had given rise to very clear distinctions (as usually happened with the masters and some aristocratic white families arrogantly self-affirmative on matters of racial inequality and race differences). Second, some outstanding figures, leaders of the ideals of national emancipation or of abolitionism, as Jose Bonifacio de Andrade e Silva, Luiz Gama, Perdigao Malheiros, Joaquim Nabuco, Antonio Bento, etc., tried to point out the nature of the white behavior and value-orientations, connected with the Negroes and the Mulattos. Third, the “negro movements” after the First World War (especially in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro during the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s), as well as intellectual Negro conferences on race relations, have contributed to a new realistic perception and explanation of the complex Brazilian racial situation.

The findings of modern sociological, anthropological, or psychological investigations (Samuel Lowrie; Roger Bastide and Florestan Fernandes; L. A. Costa Pinto; Oracy Megueira; A. Guerreiro Ramos; Octavio Ianni, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Renato Jardim Moreira; Thaïes de Azevedo; Charles Wagley, Marvin Harris, Henry W. Hutchinson and Ben Zimmerman; René Ribeiro; Joao Baptista Borges Pereira; Virginia Leone Bicudo; Aniela Ginsberg; Carolina Martuscelli Bori; Dante Moreira Leite; etc.), have confirmed and deepened the evidence discovered by earlier writers. In the present discussion, I will limit myself to three special topics: the roots of competitive social order in Brazil; some objective evidences of racial ine quality and its sociological meaning; the Brazilian pattern of racial prejudice and discrimination…

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What race do you identify Obama as? Does President Obama’s race effect your opinion of him?

SOC 119 – Voices from the Classroom
World in Conversation Project
Pennsylvania State University
2011-09-08

The first of 138+ student comments…

1. Personally President Obama’s race does not affect my opinion of him at all. When viewing Obama I consider him black, even though he is multiracial. Part of the reason I consider Obama to be black is because he looks black, and also when he was elected President there was pandemonium and celebration because he was seen as the first black President of the United States. I could not vote in the 2008 election because I was not old enough, but if I was Obama’s race would not have swayed my vote one way or the other in considering a candidate for election…
2. I consider Presiden Obama as multi racial because he is in fact half black and half white. I dont think it matters what race President Obama is. I think he should be respected as our Commander in Chief no matter what race or religion he is…
3. Our President, Barack Obama, is black. I have absolutely no opinion about what race my President is or any other important figure for that matter. Different people have different opinions about what President Obama is and if he is American and all of this nonsense but he is an American. He is an American that I consider to be black based on how I categorize people. Others may not agree with how I categorize who he is but that is how I go about business. I consider myself to be white and someone can disagree but I am still going to think I am white. My outlook on what someone is, is straight forward and I do not pass judgment based on what someone looks like besides that that person is what they are. As a result, Mr. Obama is black…
4. I identify Obama as a mixed race; he is not one hundred percent black, nor is he one hundred percent white. Obviously, his skin is darker than any other president we have had, but I don’t believe that this should be his sole identifier, nor should it be the only thing he is to be remembered for. He was raised by a white mother and is most definitely from a mixed background. Unfortunately, skin color is the first thing people see, and that is what sticks in people’s minds…
5. I am sure that almost everyone who had one glance at Obama would immediately classify him as Black, even though he is actually multiracial. Even so, his race did not change my opinion of him negatively, but rather positively I must say before and after I learned from class that he is multiracial…
6. What race do I identify Obama as and does Obama’s race effect my opinion of him? Previously to today’s sociology discussion, I thought that Barack Obama was black. I think I thought this because when he first ran for presidency, everyone made a huge deal that he would be the first black president in the United States. Clearly, I was wrong and learned that he is biracial. His Mother is a White American and his father is a Black Kenyan…
7. Despite what most people may say, President Barack Obama is multi-racial. He is only fifty percent black despite the fact that people refer to him as our “black president,” while the rest of his makeup includes white and possibly even Native American…
8. Although I do not know much about Obama’s background, just by looking at him I would classify him as a black person. I think that it was a phenomenal thing when a black man was elected as the president of the United States of America because it showed just how far we had come as a society. We had become one step closer to true racial equality…
9. First and foremost, I identify President Barack Obama as being a mixed race. Obama is English, Irish, and Kenyan. To me, that does not make him black, that makes him mixed. People were so hyped up with the fact that he is part black that I feel they chose to ignore the rest of his background. I can imagine this made some people upset…
10. I personally think that it is awesome that Obama is black. When I first heard that a black man was running for president, I was younger and pretty ignorant. I didn’t think he had a chance at winning at all. I figured most of America was more ignorant than I and that they were all republicans and/or racist. Clearly, I was extremely wrong…
11. Barrack Obama is the nation’s first black president. Most everybody I know categorizes Barrack Obama as a black man, as do I. If you were to ask me if Barrack Obama is black, I would say yes. But if you asked me what race Barrack Obama is, I would say multi-racial like I did on the clicker question asked in class…
12. I would consider President Obama to be multiracial, his father was black and his mother was white. But, does this affect my opinion of him? To say the honest truth, I absolutely do not have any knowledge in politics or government. I am not registered to vote, nor do I think I should have the right to vote knowing my lack of knowledge on the subject…
13. I view President Obama as multiracial although when he first started running for president I saw him as black because of all the hype of him possibly being the first black President of the United States. I personally think the debates that occurred about his race and religion got way out of hand during the election and often took the focus away from actual issues. For me personally it does not affect my opinion of him…
14. I personally identify Obama as a mixed individual. It is clearly seen that he is a man of mixed origins. It is also very apparent that he has some Black in him. Now to get into the total percents I don’t know what fraction of his blood is Black, Asian, etc. but the fact still remains that he has Black blood in him. To say that he is black is not totally wrong either…
15. Let me start off by saying that I consider Barack Obama to be a black man for the sheer fact that he seemed to identify with the black community throughout his campaign. I also understand that when you could possibly be the first black president in American history you do not want to ruin the hopes of millions of minorities by denying your heritage because you are multi-racial and not a fully black man. But since he does consider himself a black man and not multi-racial I have different feelings towards him than other white candidates…
16. I dont care at all that Obama is black or part Asian or whatever he is. To me he is black and that is just fine. I dont follow politics much but it’s hard to do worse than Bush. Obama inherited a shitty economy and I dont blame him at all for that. He did manage to catch Osama Bin Laden after Bush failed for however many years. That was pretty badass. He’s just a likable, intelligent, pretty good looking guy. The fact that he’s black doesnt do anything to detract from that…
17. When I first look at someone, I identify them by the color of their skin. Without talking to someone and finding out how he or she identifies him/herself, that’s all I can go by. With that idea in mind, I identify Barack Obama as a black male because his skin is clearly darker than mine and other white people. That does not affect my views, though…
18. Barack Obama’s father is from Africa and his mother is white. So I guess I would consider him biracial but I mostly view him as a black man. It is the easiest to identify him with because he is a man of color. To be honest his race does not alter my opinion of him but it does scare me. It makes me afraid for him, for me and for blacks in general. There is a ton of pressure on anybody who decides to become the president of the United States. Him being the first black president brings added pressure because he is the first of his kind to be in such a high position of power. This is a double edged sword because though he is in the position to knock down barriers and give more people of color the opportunity to become president he is also in position to give white America a reason to not vote for another candidate of color…

Read all of the other comments 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.

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.

Whoa, We Have a Black President

Zócalo: Public Square
2011-09-08

Randall Kennedy Assesses Obama’s Triumphs—and Shortcomings—In Erasing the Color Line

Randall Kennedy, Harvard professor of law and author of The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency, had an assignment: to answer whether or not Obama has been erasing the color line. “By color line,” explained Kennedy, “I mean all of the sentiments, instincts, habits of mind, structures that wrongly stymie people because of race. Is Obama erasing that baleful aspect of political culture?”
 
In a word, said Kennedy, yes. But there was a caveat: the “Obama way” is to avoiding talking about race at every turn.
 
According to Kennedy, Obama’s most impressive feat was to treat making it to the White House as a realistic, tenable option. His legacy, Kennedy believes, will be the alteration of public psychology to a place of normalizing a black presidency. After four years, people will have accepted seeing a black man enter and exit Air Force One.
 
“It was so audacious because of the history of the U.S.,” he said.
 
As Kennedy reminded the audience, a crowd of a few hundred gathered in an auditorium in the Hammer Museum, African-Americans were largely excluded from politics until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. “Blacks were excluded by dint of terror throughout the deep South, excluded by dint of various legal shenanigans,” Kennedy said….

…Kennedy’s own criticisms of Obama only came up in the question-and-answer portion of the evening. Kennedy said he believes that Obama didn’t actively do enough to change the ideological landscape of the country and that he was sheepish about outwardly supporting liberal judges. Kennedy was most critical of Obama’s stances surrounding gay rights, finding it ironic that when Obama’s parents married across racial boundaries it was considered a felony in many places. Now Obama is pushing a “separate but equal” equivalent in the gay community…

Read the entire article here.
Watch the video and/or listen to the audio here.

The Concept of Post-Racial: How Its Easy Dismissal Obscures Important Questions

Dædalus
Volume 140, Issue 1 (Winter 2011 – Race in the Age of Obama, volume 1)
pages 174–182
DOI: 10.1162/DAED_a_00069