Mixed Race Studies

The C.O.W.S. [Context of White Supremacy] w/ Minkah Makalani – Jul 15, 2010

The C.O.W.S Radio Show
BlogTalkRadio
2010-07-15

Gus T. Renegade, Host

Minkah Makalani, Assistant Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies
University of Texas, Austin

Rutgers’ Minkah Makalani will share his views on the System of White Supremacy. Minkah Makalani is an assistant professor of history; his primary focus is black radicalism, nationalism, the African diaspora, and social movements. We’ll explore his research on “biracial identity” [non-white people with a White parent]. Professor Makalani has written two standout articles on this subject: Rejecting Blackness, Claiming Whiteness: Anti-Black Whiteness and the Creation of a Biracial Race and A Biracial Identity or a New Race? The Historical Limitations and Political Implications of a Biracial Identity. Much of Professor Makalani’s analysis reveals how non-white people with a White parent frequently make a conscious and/or unconscious effort to distance themselves from black people... in a word, they highlight their Whiteness. We’ll explore the ramifications of this in a System dominated by White Supremacy. PS—Professor Makalani has a White parent.

Interview begins at 00:01:23 and ends at 02:04:47.

A Biracial Identity or a New Race? The Historical Limitations and Political Implications of a Biracial Identity

Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society
Volume 3, Number 4 (Fall 2001)
pages 83-112

Minkah Makalani, Assistant Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies
University of Texas, Austin

Over the past fifteen years in the United States, there has emerged a concerted push to racially reclassify persons with one Black and one white parent as biracial.  Advocates of racial reclassification are calling for the establishment of a biracial identity that is both socially and officially recognized.  They are joined by a cohort of scholars, many of whom are themselves biracial identity advocates, who argue that such an identity is more appropriate for persons of mixed parentage than a Black one. Social scientist have dominated these discussions, concerned primarily with the experiences and identity of people of mixed parentage. They maintain that a biracial identity would better recognized the complete racial background of persons of mixed parentage and offer a more mentally healthy racial identity than a Black racial identity.  Moreover, the exalt a biracial identity as a positive step in moving society beyond issues of race and towards the realization of a color-blind society.

Focusing on the scholarship advocating a biracial identity for people with one Black and one white parent, I argue that such an identity has no historical basis, and would have a negative political impact on African Americans…

Read the entire article here.