Mixed Race Studies

This assimilation should disabuse us of the fantasy of the imminent demise of the white majority and its loss of power. Not all the newcomers to the mainstream will identify as whites, and its visibly growing diversity will be a key development of the early 21st century, as the election of the nation’s first black president unmistakably signals. “Whiteness,” however, has never been fixed; it is a malleable concept, and it is on its way to changing again, as it has before.

Yet it is critical not to lapse immediately into another fantasy, namely, the belief that assimilation will prove a panacea for still-glaring ethno-racial disparities. Contemporary assimilation is simply not on the same scale as that of the mid-20th century, when, for example, Italians caught up to other whites in education and socioeconomic attainment in just a 25-year period after World War II. Assimilation today is crimped by greatly heightened inequalities and is leaving many outside its reach, including many Hispanics, such as the undocumented and their children, even those who are U.S. citizens because they were born here. In one respect, however, the earlier and current patterns of assimilation are similar: African Americans are participating only to a limited extent. Indeed, one could even say they are being bypassed.

Richard Alba, “The Likely Persistence of a White Majority,” The American Prospect, Winter 2016, Volume 27, Number 1 (January 11, 2016). http://prospect.org/article/likely-persistence-white-majority-0.

Today, I struggle to understand how some of my beautiful black brothers and sisters hate their faces and hate being black. I struggle when I hear someone say they wish they had “good hair” and not love who they are. Especially now, with all love to my mother and love to my white friends, I have come to wish I wasn’t half white. I have come to rejecting my whiteness in a way. I am in no way saying that I hate or reject white people. Instead I am consciously grabbing the power to identify myself. I claim my blackness with pride, the pride of a people that have had great scientists, inventors, world leaders and shakers, of great men and women throughout history. Outside of physically building America, we have continued to add so much to this nation, culturally and intellectually. We have given it our soul. There is nothing to be ashamed of in being black.

Matthew Braunginn, “BEST OF 2015: Not Quite White,” Madison365, December 29, 2015. http://madison365.com/index.php/2015/12/29/best-of-2015-not-quite-white/.

Multiracial identity recognition with a specific category may be a way to foster a positive racial identity in mixed-race individuals, especially in American society, where the idea of separated racial groups remains. Actually, the development of a healthy and positive racial identity in mixed-race individuals will determine their group membership – if to a single race among the traditional ones, if to more than one (biracial), or if to none (transcendent identity). Also, the consciousness of their multiple racial identities make multiracial Americans and Brazilians able to serve as bridges among races, promoting solidarity and reducing polarization, stereotypes and bias.

Ana Carolina Miguel Gouveia, “Multiracial Identity Recognition – Why Not? A Comparison Between Multiracialism in the United States and Brazil,” PhD diss., University of Ottawa, 2015. 97. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/33178.

The US presidency was not designed for a man of Obama’s racial background. Instead, it was conceived by and for White males, particularly privileged Christian, heterosexual White males. Hence, how might it feel to be the first African-American commander in chief of an imperial and White hegemonic state? Only Obama can answer this question. Only he knows, for example, how it feels to be undermined and called names by conservative Whites, including White males in the US Congress. Due to the social construction of race, which is linked to the lasting legacy of slavery, colonization, and White supremacy, Blacks are represented and treated as less intelligent and less competent than Whites.

Pierre Wilbert Orelus, Race, Power, and the Obama Legacy. (Oxford, New York: Routledge, 2015) 18.

Blackness didn’t originate with my ancestors’ feelings about how they wanted to self-identify. It was created over a period of centuries through very specific, deliberate constructions in European and white American schools of biology, phrenology, philosophy, anthropology, and political and legal systems to uphold the intrinsic superiority of whiteness and corresponding black inferiority.

Malaika Jabali, “Shaun King Is Not Rachel Dolezal: What the Media Gets Wrong About Race in America,” For Harriet, August 29, 2015. http://www.forharriet.com/2015/08/shaun-king-is-not-rachel-dolezal-what.html.

I understand the need to keep our blood. It’s scary to see fewer of us. But my sons aren’t any less loveable for being mixed, and while one is darker than the other, both of them will have a right to sing the songs of my nation and stand with me in honor.

Terese Mailhot, “‘Here Comes Honky!’: Why I Married a White Guy,” Indian Country Today Media Network, January 6, 2016. http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/01/06/here-comes-honky-why-i-married-white-guy.

When surveying youth in foster care, almost one in five changed their racial self-identification over a one-year period. This reflects a higher rate of change over a shorter period of time than has been reported in the literature for adolescents in the general public. In contrast, the increased likelihood for Native American and multi-racial youth in the current study to change their racial categorization mirrors findings from earlier studies involving similarly-aged youth; the findings also suggest that a significant proportion of Hispanic youth change their ethnic categorization as well. Findings from the current study further highlight high rates of discordance between the racial and ethnic self-identification of Native American, Hispanic and multi-racial youth, and how agencies (school and child welfare) categorize them. For example, the level of discordance between self-reports of Native American youth and the racial designations made by child welfare was 90% at Time 1; youth–child welfare discordance was even higher (96.1%) for multiracial youth. Similarly, Hispanic youth were misclassified by the child welfare system over half of the time, and by school approximately one-third of the time.

Jessica Schmidt, et. al., “Who am I? Who do you think I am? Stability of racial/ethnic self-identification among youth in foster care and concordance with agency categorization,” Children and Youth Services Review, Volume 56, September, 2015, 65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.06.011. Also here.

Dominicans, just like any other people of the world, have the right to come up with their own identifiers without judgment or interference as long as they aren’t subjugating any group of people. Wanting equality is a universal human trait, and being that the Dominican Republic has also been colonized by white supremacy, racism and colorism is prevalent, to an extent. Although, it shouldn’t be enough to hold anti-Dominican sentiments like most people have in the States when discussing the dire situation of Haitian immigrants and their Dominican-born descendants. Because that hate ricochets to most innocent Dominicans who have absolutely no power to be racist, and it trickles down to those even more powerless than them; Haitian immigrants and their Dominican-born descendants themselves.

César Vargas, “Black in a Foreign Land: In Defense of Dominican Identity,” The Huffington Post, Latino Voices, December 17, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/casar-vargas/black-in-a-foreign-land-i_b_8807772.html.

Bell: How do you identify yourself?

[Misty] Copeland: My mom told me I was black. I filled out paperwork at school that said I was black. Those were the boxes I checked. Misty laughed. She laughs a lot. But she’s serious when discussing race. Both of Misty’s parents were mixed race. Sylvia DelaCerna, Misty’s mother, was Italian and black, adopted and brought up by a black woman and her black husband in Kansas City, Missouri. DelaCerna’s adoptive mother worked for child services. DelaCerna grew up to be a professional cheerleader for the Kansas City Chiefs. Misty’s father split for Chicago when Misty was a child and left her mom with six kids.

Ian Spencer Bell, “The Caramel Variations,” Ballet Review, Spring 2012. 22. http://www.balletreview.com/images/Ballet_Review_40-1_Caramel_Variations.pdf.

“A Hawaiian is a Hawaiian is a Hawaiian,” said Michelle Kauhane, president and CEO of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement. “Whether they have a drop or more than 50 percent.”

Jennifer Sinco Kelleher, “Rulemaking under way for DNA testing for Hawaiian homelands,” The Associated Press, December 28, 2015. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d5481a15bd164d25ba02fc510473d046/rulemaking-under-way-dna-testing-hawaiian-homelands.