Mixed Race Studies

Ethics generally commends telling the truth. But in a situation in which our ordinary ways of thinking are at odds with reality, there can be no easy truth to be had. When it comes to race, confusion is the most intellectually defensible position.

Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Can I Call My Nonbiological Twins Black Because My Husband Is?,” The Ethicist, The New York Times Magazine, January 27, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/magazine/can-i-call-my-nonbiological-twins-black-because-my-husband-is.html.

“I always identified as black. That was, I think, the only choice for me. The other choice wasn’t psychologically healthy for me, because my whole family didn’t have that option. So I think black was my identity, and in many ways still is, though I think of black and mixed as related in a complicated way. I think of myself as mixed, and I think of myself as part of a long history of African-American writers, so I don’t see them as so distinct as people do these days.”

“…The black community was where I placed myself, and I felt actually sort of disparaging of people who identified as mixed; that seemed kind of tragic to me, because it seemed like they were avoiding the politics and the power relations that were really at the heart of race, to me. So a lot of my politics grew around this identity growing up, of identifying myself as black and seeing race as much more than a biological category. I think now I don’t worry so much about what I identify as; that just seems sort of simplistic, to suggest that there’s one answer to that. But I don’t feel badly that I didn’t.” —Danzy Senna

Tamara Wieder, “Saving Race,” The Boston Phoenix, May 14-20, 2004. http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/qa/multi_1/documents/03827943.asp.

In order to create a just society for Americans of every race—and multiple races—we need to officially acknowledge and protect the rights of multiracial people. Mono-racial policies leave growing numbers of Americans unprotected from racial discrimination. It is time for race policy in the U.S. to acknowledge the nation’s new demographics and work for a racially just society for all.

Kathleen Odell Korgen, “Why Race Policy must include Multiracial Americans,” Policy Press Blog at the University of Bristol, January 27, 2016. https://policypress.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/why-race-policy-must-include-multiracial-americans/.

There’s no such thing as half-white or half-black. There’s no such thing as equality in America.

Amber Rambharose, “My Whiteness And My Blackness Are Not Reconcilable.” RaceBaitR, August 25, 2015. http://racebaitr.com/2015/08/25/my-whiteness-and-my-blackness-are-not-reconcilable/.

Many of the Indians who now strongly assert their identities are the children or grandchildren of Indians who “passed” as white. Others were adopted into white families, and later sought to reclaim their heritage. John Homer, for example, was born 44 years ago to Indian parents in Hugo, Okla., but was adopted by a white couple. As a child growing up in Arkansas, he knew that he was Indian and was bothered that he could walk comfortably in whites-only neighborhoods because of his adopted parents but that other Indian boys could not.

Dirk Johnson, “Census Finds Many Claiming New Identity: Indian,” The New York Times, March 5, 1991. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/05/us/census-finds-many-claiming-new-identity-indian.html

“Of all the places I’ve lived, there’s only one where I felt uncomfortable being black. It was where I am from: the United States.” —Nicholas Casey

Nicholas Casey, “Moving to Venezuela, a Land in Turmoil: Q&A: Race and Racism in Venezuela,” The New York Times, January 21, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/reporters-notebook/moving-to-venezuela/race-racism.

“I know that those who receive this award say they are honored and thrilled. My situation at the University of Oregon complicates my reaction. I was hired as a full professor with tenure in 2001. While I have African ancestry, I identify as multi-racial. At present, there are no full professors who identify as African American or Black in the entire University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences. But I am a woman of color. At present there are only two full professors who are women of color throughout the entire University of Oregon. I am one of them. Given this situation, I am neither thrilled nor honored to receive an award in the name of Martin Luther King at this time, here at the University of Oregon.

I am embarrassed.” —Naomi Zack

Justin Weinberg, “King Award Recipient: “Neither thrilled nor honored”,” Daily Nous: News for and About the Philosophy Profession, January 20, 2016. http://dailynous.com/2016/01/20/king-award-recipient-neither-thrilled-nor-honored/.

“I mean, how do you explain… to children that slavery existed in freedom-loving America, No. 1; and No. 2, how do you explain to a child about an enslaved heritage shrouded in miscegenation? It’s not an easy thing to do.” —Regina Mason

Terry Gross, “When Ancestry Search Led To Escaped Slave: ‘All I Could Do Was Weep’,” National Public Radio, Fresh Air, WHYY Philadelphia, (January 18, 2016). http://www.npr.org/2016/01/18/463164866/when-ancestry-search-led-to-escaped-slave-all-i-could-do-was-weep. (00:06:48-00:07:05).

When asked what he thinks of the “Is he black enough?” discussion, Obama grins. Perhaps it’s that bit of [Muhammad] Ali in him. “If you go to my barbershop, the Hyde Park Hair Salon, 53rd Street on the Southside, and you ask my guys in there, people don’t understand the question,” he says. “But it’s something I worked out a long time ago. I know who I am. My friends, my family, my constituency know who I am, and by the time this campaign is all over, America will know who I am.” —Barack Obama

Jeff Chang, “Ladies and Gentlemen, (Is This) The Next President of the United States(?),” Vibe Magazine, September 2007 (Volume 15, Number 9), 178. https://books.google.com/books?id=nyYEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA172#v=onepage&q&f=false.

All of these things I took into consideration before coming to my own conclusions about my own identify. I first didn’t know I was Black. I then wanted to be Black. I knew I had African ancestry throughout High School and beyond college—to the point of calling myself a mulato. I might be “mixed” in the Dominican Republic, but here, in a foreign land that I now call home, I am Black. Not because American anthropologists or society tells and treats me like so—and believe me, they have—but because I choose to. I am Black through my own accord.

César Vargas, “César Vargas: How I Became Black,” Okayafrica. Giving you true notes since 247,000 BC, January 8, 2016. http://www.okayafrica.com/news/cesar-vargas-how-i-became-black/.