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.

The Civil War afforded the community of free Negroes an opportunity to show their solidarity with their enslaved brothers in the South. Anti-Confederate feeling was so strong in Gouldtown [in New Jersey] that all the men offered to fight. The community officially informed President Lincoln that it could raise a regiment of colored men burning with a great zeal to help defeat the armies of the slaveholders. When that offer was rejected by the government, the entire community felt rebuffed. Scores of Gouldtown men quietly slipped away from their homes and joined the Union Army as white men.

“America’s Oldest Negro Community,” Ebony, February 1952: 42-46.

Elizabeth Fenwick Adams – Did she or didn’t she? A family history mystery.

Historic Places in South Jersey
2011-03-07

J. Wright

Twice this past week on gloriously sunny days that smelled of spring, friends and I headed down the highway on the trail of the mystery of Elizabeth Fenwick Adams and her alleged connection with the family that founded Gouldtown, a unique and remarkable tri-racial community in South Jersey.

Elizabeth Fenwick Adams and Gouldtown were not my only reasons for heading as far south as Greenwich, however. This year is the sesqui-centennial of the Civil War and I was also still on the hunt for the Underground Railroad and South Jersey’s fascinating AfroAmerican history including the Ambury Hill Cemetery.

The first of the two days, a friend and I researched Othello and Springtown. Once we’d arrived at Greenwich, the only town in New Jersey that I could actually imagine myself moving to, we stopped in at the Cumberland County Historical Society Library. The people there are kind, generous and friendly. Armed with their directions, maps, and knowledge, we drove to the “head of Greenwich” on Ye Greate Street, and up on a lonesome bluff, we found Ambury Hill, home of some veterans of the Civil War and the “Colored” Regiment from Cumberland County…

…Well, for Elizabeth’s story, we have to go back much further, to the arrival of the Fenwick family on the ship Griffin. This story stirs up a lot of debate over oral history and documentary history. The document that exists and gives the oral history some credibility is the will of John Fenwick, the original proprietor of the area. Written just before his death, in 1683. Variations on the quotation of the paragraph in the will exist in different web sites and books, but the gist of it as written in Rizzo’s book is:

“Item: I do except against Elizabeth Adams of having any ye least part of my estate, unless the Lord open her eyes to see her abominable transgression against him, me and her good father, by giving her true repentance, and forsaking yt Black yt hath been ye ruin of her, and becoming penitent for her sins; upon yt condition only I do will and require my executors to settle five hundred acres of land upon her”

Genealogical accounts have Elizabeth Fenwick Adams marrying an other colonist, Anthony Windsor, several days after grandfather’s will. Oral tradition of the Gouldtown residents has it that she and the original Gould had five children. No information remains on what happened to the three daughters, and one son died, which left Benjamin Gould, who married a Finnish woman and founded Gouldtown. It is said that their graves, Benjamin and his Finnish wife, are in the cemetery at Gouldtown. Information on the succeeding generations plus a really fine large group photo of the Goulds is available on-line in The Southern Workman, Vol 37, by the Hampton Institute via a google search…

Read the entire article 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.

The Mixed-Race Experience: Treatment of Racially Miscategorized Individuals under Title VII

Asian American Law Review
University of California
Volume 12 (2005)

Ken Nakasu Davison

This article argues that the static legal construction of race has the dangerous potential to permit cases of racially-based discrimination, thus circumventing its prohibition in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The author challenges the classification of race as an “immutable characteristic,” demonstrating how some physical characteristic by which employers are legally allowed to discriminate are actually grounded in individuals’ racial backgrounds. Lastly, the author uses the miscategorization of mixed-race individuals as a case study of the dangers and limitations of race as an immutable characteristic, instead arguing for a comprehensive understanding of race as a social construct.

I. Introduction
 
 One observer writes, “Race may be America’s single most confounding problem, but the confounding problem about race is that few people seem to know what race is.”  This remark poignantly captures the irony of race – that is, race still remains an enigma even though we live in a society in which race determines so much of our lives. Indeed, notions of race, to a large extent, govern our public and private identities by associating certain characteristics with socially constructed racial classes. Some characteristics that identify and associate a person with a racial group are susceptible to change and are viewed by the law as the result of mutable social forces. Under Title VII, some courts have adopted a mutability requirement under which employers may permissibly discriminate based upon “socially-driven” characteristics, even if they are a part of a person’s racial, sexual or ethnic identity. Social characteristics such as one’s language, manner of speech, style of hair, attire and choice of friends are all factors that are commonly viewed as indicators of a person’s racial ancestry, but remain unprotected under a mutability analysis.

Foremost amongst indicators of race is phenotype, which is defined as the interaction of an individual’s gene structure with his or her surroundings to create physical appearance.  Phenotype indicators, such as hair texture, facial features, and skin color, are assumed to be based on biology and to provide an accurate indication of a person’s racial ancestry…

Read or purchase the article here.

Developing critical race theory to study race and racism in China’s media: a case study of the chocolate girl’s bittersweet stardom on Go Oriental Angel

California State University, Sacramento
Summer 2011
105 pages

Siok Kwan Teoh

Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in COMMUNICATION STUDIES

This study discusses the history, tenets, and evolution of Critical Race Theory (CRT), and how the theory can be developed for use in a mediated context and a Chinese context. This paper employs Lou Jing’s (a mixed-race reality show contestant in China) story as a case study while reflecting upon the role that China’s history, socio-economic influences, and politics have played in shaping the country’s contemporary outlook on racial identities and racism. The analysis shows that most CRT tenets have a multitude of uses in exploring race, racism, classism, and European and U.S. influence in Chinese society, and how power is manipulated by the government in China’s media outlets.

Table of Contents

• 1. INTRODUCTION
• 2. BACKGROUND OF CRITICAL RACE THEORY
  • The History of Race
  • The History of Critical Race Theory
  • The Basic Tenets of Critical Race Theory
  • Criticisms of Critical Race Theory
  • The Evolving Nature of Critical Race Theory
  • Applications of Critical Race Theory
• 3. BACKGROUND OF CHINA
  • The Racial Homogeneity Myth
  • Late Nineteenth Century and Racial Nationalism
  • Twentieth Century and the Myth of the Yellow Emperor
  • Contemporary China’s Racial Identities
  • Contemporary China and its Media Environment
  • Reality Television in China
• 4. METHOD
  • Data Collection
  • The Chocolate Girl Case Study
• 5. ANALYSIS
  • Racism is Ordinary
  • Intersectionality and Anti-Essentialism
  • The Social Construction of Race
  • Interest Convergence
  • The Use of Storytelling and Counter-Narratives
  • Whiteness
• 6. CONCLUSION
  • Future Studies
• References

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

China has been continually evolving over the centuries to meet a variety of challenges that shaped the nation and led it from imperial rule to communism, and to its subsequent economic development that opened its doors to the rest of the world. In the twenty-first century, more foreigners are making China their home, resulting in Chinese people marrying foreigners and giving birth to mixed race children. The data from the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau show that, from 1994 to 2008, there was an average of 3,000 mixed race marriages a year in Shanghai. Even with the increasing mixed race marriage rate, China still likes to think of itself as monocultural instead of a multicultural nation (Elegant & Jiang, 2009). A popular televised singing competition in China called Go Oriental Angel featured a mixed race African American and Chinese contestant in the 2009 season. Lou Jing was born and raised in Shanghai by her Chinese mother, and essentially identifies as Chinese. However, her appearance on a nationally televised show caused a major uproar in China and brought about international attention to China’s issues of racism and the Chinese identity. If a reality-based television star had been criticized for her/his race by audience members in the United States, scholars from different fields including communication, sociology, and ethnic studies would have studied the phenomenon. Some of those scholars might have chosen a theory that could clarify why and how the United States’ history with race could lead to the audience reacting so negatively to the reality star’s race.

Although a relatively new theory, academics and activists across the United States have employed Critical Race Theory (CRT) in legal, healthcare, education, criminal justice, and sports to examine the relationship between race, racism, and power. CRT is a specifically American theory based upon the socio-political history of the United States and mainly applied to study and change the policies that affect unequal treatments based upon race, especially in education and criminal justice issues. This thesis is a theoretical discussion on CRT, its history, implications, and the evolution of its scholarship; this theory also raises two questions about CRT: how can CRT be developed for use in a mediated context and how can it be developed for use in a Chinese context? This thesis employs the reality television program Go Oriental Angel and the story of Lou Jing as a case study to answer the two questions.

First, this thesis will briefly investigate the socio-political racial history in Europe and in the United States to explain how race was created and used to justify slavery and segregation, and the relationship between race and the global capitalistic system. It will then introduce CRT and delve into its history, concepts, and tenets, as well as the critiques, applications, and evolution of the theory. To better understand how China perceives race and what it means to be Chinese, this thesis will investigate the myth of the Yellow Emperor that helped China develop and proliferate the notion of the monocultural Han Chinese identity, and it will then briefly discuss the issues in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries that shaped China’s Chinese identity. It also will examine contemporary China’s economic growth and how that growth has impacted the social and media environment of China particularly in the area of reality-based television programming. The show Go Oriental Angel and the treatment of its mixed-race contestant, Lou Jing by the show’s hosts and the Internet audience will be discussed. Based upon the literature review of CRT, China’s history, contemporary issues, and media environment, and utilizing Go Oriental Angel as a case study, this thesis will answer the questions of how CRT can be developed for use in a mediated context and how it can be developed for use in a Chinese context. Finally, this thesis will explore possible future studies of CRT that would accommodate a global perspective and a communication focus…

Read the entire dissertation here.