Mixed Race Studies

Hawkins told Smith that he has three sisters married to white men who do not suspect their wives of having negro blood.

“Would-Be Bridegroom Takes Oath He Is Negro,” The San Francisco Call, Volume 104, Number 70 (August 9, 1908). page 31, column 4. https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC19080809.2.99.

“I’m very light, so some people don’t really know that I’m black. I’ve been in situations where people will say something kind of racist and I’ll step in and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, well, you’re light,’” she says, her eyes flashing. “That still doesn’t cut it, buddy. It’s 2016—you better get your shit together before you get slapped out here.” —Sofia Ritchie

Rebecca Haithcoat, “Family Business,” Complex, December 2016/January 2017. http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/sofia-richie-interview-2016-cover-story.

There is nothing more American than passing, the act of projecting a racial identity other than that assigned.

Lydia Nichols, “Review: “Krazy” by Michael Tisserand,” Know Louisiana: The Digital Encyclopedia of Louisiana and Home of Louisiana Cultural Vistas, Winter 2016 (December 2, 2016). https://www.knowlouisiana.org/46243-2.

And people bleach in Asia — lightening creams and lotions are as ubiquitous in drugstores in Seoul as eye shadow. They do it in Europe, despite the restrictions there on sales of hydroquinone. You can walk into any number of black beauty salons in London and find bleaching creams and lotions.

But Africa? If you can’t be dark-skinned in Africa, then where can you?

Helene Cooper, “What Is the Color of Beauty?,” The New York Times, November 26, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/fashion/skin-bleaching-south-africa-women.html.

Whether we like to admit it or not, the result of the mixture of two races, in the long run, gives us a race reverting to the more ancient, generalized and lower type. The cross between a white man and an Indian is an Indian; the cross between a white man and a negro is a negro; the cross between a white man and a Hindu is a Hindu; and the cross between any of the three European races and a Jew is a Jew.

Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race or The Racial Basis of European History, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916): 15-16. https://archive.org/details/passinggreatrac01grangoog.

Michael Tisserand: When I learned more about his family, I understood a bit more not just the pressures he [George Herriman] must have felt in passing for white, but also the strange, unsettling feeling it must have been to identify with a group of people historically known as Free People of Color, or Mulatto, or Creoles… a group that constantly was seeing its very identity being changed legally and linguistically and culturally. And then for Herriman to work in a genre so deeply influenced by the masks of minstrelsy! When I read a classic Krazy Kat line such as “lenguage is that we may mis-unda-stend each udda,” it seems pretty clear that Herriman had a deep understanding of what we now consider to be modern notions of the slipperiness of language and a sort of permeability of identity…

Paul Tumey,“A “Konversation” with George Herriman’s Biographer, Michael Tisserand (Part One),” The Comics Journal, November 14, 2016. http://www.tcj.com/a-konversation-with-george-herrimans-biographer-michael-tisserand-part-one/.

[Tanya K.] Hernandez’s close examination of many multiracial discrimination legal cases in a variety of equality law contexts demonstrates the fallacy and danger of that presumption. The cases frequently describe acts of discrimination accompanied by pointed, derogatory comments about non-whiteness—and blackness in particular. The overarching commonality is the exceptionalism of blackness and non-whiteness, rather than multiraciality, as problematic. Although the complainants may personally identify as multiracial, they present allegations of public discrimination rooted in a specific non-white and black bias that is not novel or particular to mixed-race persons.

Shane Danaher, “Multiracialism and Civil Rights,” Fordham Law News, November 21, 2016. http://news.law.fordham.edu/blog/2016/11/21/multiracialism-and-civil-rights/.

I feel what we’re what we’re experiencing with [Donald] Trump and his constituents is a lot of backlash anxiety about the loss of white supremacy, but this too is part of progress. Do you know the comedian Hari Kondabolu?  I bet Z will like his stuff in a couple more years. Here he is on the year 2042 when Census figures indicate that whites will be the minority: “In 2042 apparently white people will be 49 percent. First of all, why do we give a fuck? Why do we keep mentioning this? Why is this even an issue? Are there white people here that are concerned that they’ll be the minority in 2042? Don’t worry white people, you were a minority when you came to this country. Things seemed to have worked out for you.” And have you heard about Lori Tharps’ important new book, Same Family, Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in America’s Diverse Families. The author, who is in a mixed-race marriage and mother to mixed kids, shares the concerns that have driven your work. Of course, Z’s experience is a lot different than mine when I was growing up. I was a unicorn. He’s of another, more diverse, generation, a different ethnic background, and lives in a cosmopolitan neighborhood. As you’ve pointed out, you can’t throw a rock in your corner of Brooklyn without hitting a mixed kid. Not that anyone should be throwing stones. —Emily Raboteau

Mira Jacob and Emily Raboteau, “Our Kids, Their Fears, Our President?” Literary Hub, November 7, 2016. http://lithub.com/our-kids-their-fears-our-president/.

[Emma] Dabiri’s own story serves as a typically atypical example. Her mother was born to white Irish parents in Trinidad, where Dabiri’s maternal grandfather worked as a civil engineer. Her father was born to black Nigerian parents in Ireland before moving back to Nigeria, and Dabiri herself was raised in her paternal grandparents’ house in Atlanta, Georgia, before returning to Dublin aged five. In summary? “So my mum was Irish but she’s Trinidadian, and my dad’s Nigerian but he’s Irish,” she laughs.

Ellen E. Jones, “BBC’s Emma Dabiri says her first time in Brixton was like discovering a black utopia,” Evening Standard, November 17, 2016. http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/bbcs-emma-dabiri-says-her-first-time-in-brixton-was-like-discovering-a-black-utopia-a3397851.html.

It is probably doing a disservice to ourselves as Americans to oversimplify issues that cannot, by their very nature, be simple. I have shared examples of passing in America that demonstrate that this behavior is neither new nor unusual. Yes, the image of Rachel Dolezal has meaning. She is consciously constructing blackness with, I believe, integrity and good intentions. If images produce an impact, I believe that the center of all this spectacle around a young academic is the two white parents, estranged from their grown daughter, who publicly “outed” her.

Judy Phagan, “Passing in the Age of Rachel Dolezal, or Is Everyone Catfishing?,” Response: The Digital Journal of Popular Culture Scholarship, (November 2016). https://responsejournal.net/issue/article/passing-age-rachel-dolezal-or-everyone-catfishing.