My self-designation: Black with Access to Residual White Privilege (BWATRWP).

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2013-02-25 00:50Z by Steven

…I don’t believe multi-racial makes sense by my understanding of race.  Race is socially constructed and “multi-racial” seems to assume that race is biological: if parents are of different then the kid is “mixed”.   But that is not how race works. Race is constructed through law, history, culture, practice, custom, etc.

“Black” does not designate having two parents who are both “un-mixed” descendants of Africa and African diaspora. “Black” [is] derived from society.  There is no “mixed race” history, institutions, cultural practices.  There are mixed race [people] who are part of all these, but no group history.  I believe all people can self-identify themselves in ways that feel comfortable and honest, but the social/political part is bigger. I have a white mother and black father, but this doesn’t make me mixed race.  Race is not biology. In USA this combo makes me black.

My self-designation: Black with Access to Residual White Privilege (BWATRWP)…

Melissa Harris-Lacewell

Eddings, Jeff, “Princeton Professor tweets about her views on mixed-race identity,” Mixed Child: The Pulse of the Mixed Community, (July 27, 2009). http://www.mixedchild.com/NEWS/August2009/Princeton_Professor.htm or http://coleridgehead.blogspot.com/2009/07/melissa-harris-lacewell-on-race.html.

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Princeton Professor tweets about her views on mixed-race identity (Interview with Melissa Harris-Lacewell)

Posted in Articles, Identity Development/Psychology, Interviews, New Media, Politics/Public Policy, Social Science, United States, Women on 2010-01-26 21:56Z by Steven

Princeton Professor tweets about  her views on mixed-race identity (Interview with Melissa Harris-Lacewell)

Mixed Child: The Pulse of the Mixed Community
2009-07-29

Jeff Eddings

MSNBC contributor, Princeton University’s Associate Professor of Politics & African American Studies and author of Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought Melissa Harris-Lacewell had a frank  discussion with a follower on Twitter about the concept of mixed-race identity.

The conversation with Jeff Eddings of Silicon Valley, CA went as follows (published Monday, July 27th [2009]):

Eddings: Wrong pres[idential]. predictions aside, the biggest missed opp. w/BO [Barack Obama] as pres. & you in the mix is lack of discussion re: multiracial.

Harris-Lacewell: I’m not sure its a missed opportunity. From my perspective I am not “multi-racial” the term has no meaning for me.

Eddings: We keep talking about race as if it were one thing. e.g. You & pres. are both multiracial, but only self-identify as black.

Harris-Lacewell: because race is a social construct it is clear to me that I am constructed as black and self-identify as such.

Eddings: Being multiracial & having grown up in both cultures, I can tell you that I’m not constructed as simply one or the other 🙂

Harris-Lacewell: Though I respect that ppl [people] have right to think of themselves as anything they like, I think “multi-racial” is a weird idea…

…Harris-Lacewell: I don’t believe multi-racial makes sense by my understanding of race.  Race is socially constructed and “multi-racial” seems to assume that race is biological: if parents are of different then the kid is “mixed”.  But that is not how race works. Race is constructed through law, history, culture, practice, custom, etc… I have a white mother and black father, but this doesn’t make me mixed race. Race is not biology. In USA this combo makes me black…

Read the entire interview here.

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