Mixed Race Studies

…One might argue that discrimination against multiracial people is merely a subset—perhaps even a milder one—of discrimination against monoracial individuals. In other words, a person who is identified as partially Black might be subject to the same kind of animus as one who is identified as fully Black. This Part aims to disprove that notion and demonstrate that animus against people identified as multiracial is a unique phenomenon.

I readily acknowledge some overlap between what we might call monoracial and multiracial animus: a racist who dislikes people who she views as Asian might well dislike an individual whom she identifies as part-Asian for some of the same reasons. But viewing someone as part-Asian also lends itself to unique forms of animus not directed at those perceived as monoracial. A mixed-race person may be viewed as polluted, defective, confusing or confused, passing, threatening, or—in our diversity-obsessed society—as opportunistic, gaining an advantage by identifying with a group in which he is at best a partial member. These negative associations may be distinguished from those directed at people perceived as monoracial.

I use history, sociology, and jurisprudence to buttress my claim that animus against multiracial people is a unique form of animus that is distinguishable from animus directed at any monoracial group. In the process, I hope to demonstrate that animus against racially mixed individuals is anything but benign or mild.

Other scholars have attempted to illuminate the reason underlying the persistent discomfort with racial mixing and racial mixedness. My own view is that different groups’ discomfort with mixing is so heterogeneous that any theory attempting to explain animus toward multiracial people will by necessity be quite complicated. While I believe that development of such a theory is an important project, it is one I do not address in this Article. Instead, I focus on demonstrating that racism directed at people who are viewed as multiracial is a real phenomenon that may result in tangible negative consequences to the lives of the people thus identified…

Nancy Leong, “Judicial Erasure of Mixed-Race Discrimination,” American University Law Review, Volume 59, Number 3 (2010): 483-484.

Quadroon Balls functioned as a form of entertainment but also served a meeting space for its participants to enter into plaçage/sexual relationships. It was at these dances that free young women of color, guided by their mothers, charmed their way into the hearts and pockets of Louisiana’s white males. At the balls, quadroon women “show their accomplishments in dancing and conversation to the white men.” Upon finding a quadroon to his liking, a man would negotiate with the quadroon woman’s mother. If both mother and daughter were satisfied with his financial and social ranking, she would be “placed” as his placée. According to literary traveler George William Featherstonhaugh,

When one of them [a quadroon] attracts the attention of an admirer, and he is desirous of forming a liaison with her, he makes a bargain with the mother, agrees to pay her a sum of money, perhaps 2000 dollars, or some sum in proportion to her merits, as a fund upon which she may retire when the liaison terminates. She is now called “une placée;” those of her caste who are her intimate friends give her fetes, and the lover prepares “un joli appartement meuble.”

 Each quadroon had a “value” which “depended on the attractiveness of the subject, the fairness of her complexion, and her mother’s ability to show her off against the competition.” This “value” was derived through negotiations between the quadroon’s mother and the white suitor. If an agreement was reached, the quadroon would become a concubine or placée for the white man in exchange for financial support for the woman. These exchanges frequently meant that the quadroon woman would receive housing, a sum of money, and promised financial support for any children that would come from these relationships. The “price” for a quadroon varied, but could be as much as $2,000. Often times, the quadroon woman would be set up in an apartment (“un joli appartement meuble”) located on Ramparts Street in New Orleans that was rented by the white gentleman for their use. These plaçage relationships could last for weeks, months, years, and, much less frequently, a life-time. In these exchanges, sexual exploitation by both parties is particularly noticeable; the quadroon exploited the pocketbook and the man exploited her body.

Quadroon women who participated in the balls had been groomed from early childhood by their mothers to take advantage of this unique opportunity to become the exploiters, using their bodies, beauty and assumed exotic sexuality to enter into contracts with wealthy white men. Monique Guillory discusses this exchange that gives women some power when she states, “Through this strategic commodification of the quadroon body, which I have called the commercial, women of color seized an opportunity beyond the confines of slavery to set the price for their own bodies.” These quadroon women chose to use their bodies as leverage to raise their own social status above the “negro” slave and the dark-skinned free people of color. This population of women became agents who exploited themselves and white men in an effort to transcend the racist system of antebellum Louisiana.

Noël Voltz, “Black Female Agency and Sexual Exploitation: Quadroon Balls and Plaçage Relationships” (PhD dissertation, Ohio State University, 2008).

The use of the term “colored” was coined by mixed-race people (Ottley 1968:95).  In the eighteenth century this population and their descendants created their own caste system, which was marked by color and class. In one case in South Carolina, mixed-race people formed the Brown Fellowship Society, an exclusive mulatto organization that I will discuss in more detail in Chapter 2.  Mixed descendants of French and Spanish settlers in New Orleans also distinguished themselves by adopting the terms gens de couleur or people of color.  This term carried with it all the connotations of higher case associated with nonblackness and mixed ancestry.  In the first half of the nineteenth century, “colored” also became the term of polite usage among free Negroes of the North.

Objections to the term “colored” were duly noted in the African American press. In the September 24, 1831, edition of The Liberator, an editorial declared that “the term ‘colored’ is not a good one.  Whenever used, it recalls to mind the offensive distinction of color.”  T. Thomas Fortune, a leading journalist in the first quarter twentieth century, also declared that the word was a vague misnomer and had “neither geographical nor political significance, as applied to race” (a quoted in Barry and Blassingame 1982:391). Nevertheless, many people, especially middle- and upper-class African Americans, used the term “colored” (Isaacs 1964:70).  The need for a name that was self-defined and descriptive remained.

Obiagele Lake, Blue Veins and Kinky Hair: Naming and Color Consciousness in African America (Santa Barbara: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003), 11.

Blue Veins and Kinky Hair: Naming and Color Consciousness in African America

Praeger Publishers
2003-06-30
160 pages
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-89789-558-3
eBook ISBN: 978-0-313-05864-6

Obiagele Lake

The author explores how Africans in America internalized the negative images created of them by the European world, and how internalized racism has worked to fracture African American unity and thereby dilute inchoate efforts toward liberation. In the late 1960s, change began with the “Black Is Beautiful” slogan and new a consciousness, which went hand in hand with Black Power and pan-African movements. The author argues that for any people to succeed, they must first embrace their own identity, including physical characteristics. Naming, skin color, and hair have been topical issues in the African American community since the 18th century. These three areas are key to a sense of identity and self, and they were forcefully changed when Africans were taken out of Africa as slaves.

The author discusses how group and personal names, including racial epithets, have had far-reaching and deep-seated effects on African American self perception. Most of her attention, however, is focused on issues of physical appearance which reflect a greater or lesser degree of racial blending. She tells us about exclusive African American organizations such as The Blue Vein Society, in which membership was extended to African Americans whose skin color and hair texture tended toward those of European Americans, although wealthy dark-skinned people were also eligible. Much of the book details the lengths to which African American women have gone to lighten their complexions and straighten their hair. These endeavors started many years ago, and still continue, although today there is also a large number of women who are adamantly going natural. Her historical look at the cultural background to African American issues of hair and skin is the first monograph of its kind.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Renaming African People
• Mulattoes and Color Consciousness in the United States
• Hair and Color Consciousness in African America
• Hair and Skin Color in Africa and the Africa and the African Diaspora
• The Delinking of African Hair
• Appendix A: Mixed Race Names
• Appendix B: Percentage Selecting Traits Across Race Labels
• Appendix C: Names Used by African Americans in U.S. History
• Appendix D: African American Orginizations Bearing the term “African”
• Appendix E: Original Version of “The Yellow Rose of Texas”
• Appendix F: Rendition of “The Yellow Rose of Texas”
• Appendix G: “Yellow Rose of Texas” Marching Song
• Appendix H: Brown Fellowship Society Members, 1790-1869
• Appendix I: Brown Fellowship Society Slave Owners
• Appendix J: Facts About Hairdressing Innovations
• References Cited
• Index

The Mulatto Cyborg: Imagining a Multiracial Future

Cinema Journal
Volume 44, Number 2 (Winter, 2005)
pages 34-49

Leilani Nishime, Assistant Professor of Communications
University of Washington

Applying the literature of passing to cyborg cinema makes visible the politics of cyborg representations and illuminates contemporary conceptions of mixed-race subjectivity and interpolations of mixed-race bodies. The passing narrative also reveals the constitutive role of melancholy and nostalgia both in creating cyborg cinema and in undermining its subversive potential.

Read the entire article here.

Making sense of race and racial classification

Race and Society
Volume 4, Issue 2, (2001)
Pages 235-247
DOI: 10.1016/S1090-9524(03)00012-3

Angela D. James, Associate Professor of African American Studies
Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles

As social scientists, race scholars, and demographers, how do we begin to make sense of recent changes in the Census Bureau’s system of racial classification, as well as of the popular response to those changes? This paper explores the lacuna between popular and scientific understandings of race. It reviews the theoretical understanding of race as a social construct, providing a brief history of racial classification in the United States. In addition, it examines the concepts of race mixing and racial ambiguity as a function of the peculiar and distinctive construction of race in the United States. Finally, the essay critically assesses how race is currently used in social research and how race might be more accurately represented and effectively employed in that research.

Article Outline

1. Changing notions of race
2. Race as social construction
2.1. The origin of race
2.2. The nature of race
3. The U.S. Census and its use of race for classification
3.1. Race versus ethnicity in the Census
4. From ethnicity to race: contemporary racial construction and Hispanics
4.1. Mixed-race and racial stratification
4.2. The strange history of race in social science research
5. Conclusions
References

Read or purchase the article here.

Africans in China: Sweet and Sour in Guangzhou

The Africa Report
2010-02-01

Namvula Rennie

Deterred by immigration controls in the West, African families and traders are moving to major Chinese cities, adding a new dimension to China-Africa relations.

It’s raining again in Guangzhou. The downpours are sudden and violent, but do little to cool the city or relieve the cloying humidity. It is an ugly place and the uniformity of its sprawl is disorienting. Under the grey skies, the traffic flows relentlessly through webs of flyovers and underpasses, around towering apartment blocks and multi-storey shopping complexes. Here you can buy anything: leather, shoes, wigs, handbags, jeans, luggage, electronics, jewellery, plumbing, picture frames, reflective strips, motorbikes and even African crafts; original or copy, you can find it or get it made.

Africans are flocking here—the wealthy, the hopeful, the ambitious and the desperate. In the heartland of the southern Chinese economy, where commerce and industry are king, Guangzhou is both a city and a dream for sale. Many find what they seek, but for others, imagination is painfully disappointed as myth 
collides with reality…

…It was at an RVC service that Pastor Augustine met his Chinese wife, Bessie. As they walk to the store, sometimes arm-in-arm, passers-by stare openly at the rare sight of a mixed-race couple. Their four-year-old daughter—with Chinese features and an afro hairstyle—attracts even more attention, as she chirps away merrily in Mandarin. Pastor Augustine and Bessie are used to others’ curiosity, but worry about how it will affect their daughter and her baby brother.
 
What seems certain is that, as they grow up, these children will face more complex challenges than their parents did. The talk of brotherhood and mutual benefits is at odds with the daily experience of Africans in Guangzhou, yet Pastor Augustine clings to optimism. His hope is that this new generation of mixed-race children will become “the ones the Chinese cannot refuse”, softening mutual distrust and paving the way to a more peaceful society…

Read the entire article here.

Psychological Adjustment, Behavior and Health Problems in Multiracial Young Adults

University of Maryland, College Park
2006
236 pages

Warren L. Kelley

Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2006

This study: (1) examined whether multiracial young adults reported lower levels of well-being relative to their White and monoracial minority peers and whether these outcomes were moderated by college attendance or racial identification; and (2) investigated factors, drawn from Root’s (2003) ecological model of multiracial identity development, during adolescence that could predict better well-being outcomes for young adults. Participants were 18-26 years old and drawn from the Wave III archival data of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Bearman, Jones, & Udry, 1997), a nationally representative school-based probability sample of participants initially surveyed in 1994-1995, with the Wave III follow-up conducted six years later in 2001-2002. Using a subset of 14,644 participants (615 multiracial, 4,686 monoracial minority, and 9,343 White) the multiracial young adults reported statistically higher levels of depression, drug abuse and physical limitations, and lower levels of self worth than their monoracial counterparts. Effect sizes (partial eta squared), however, were so small, varying between .001 and .003, that these statistical findings did not represent meaningful differences. Therefore, the current study found evidence of fewer difficulties of multiracial young adults relative to their monoracial peers, when compared to previous researchers who studied the same sample as adolescents and found consistent patterns of negative well-being (Milan & Keiley, 2000; Udry et al., 2003). In part this may be because previous researchers did not present effect sizes. Using a second subset of 8,978 participants (402 multiracial, 2,617 monoracial minority, and 5,959 White) a two phased, multi-group structural equation model examined the relationship between adolescence and young adulthood factors and found that multiracial participants had the highest path coefficients for depression and living with both biological parents in comparison to their monoracial counterparts. College attendance was found to not change the relationship of multiracial young adults on reported well-being outcomes in comparison to their monoracial counterparts. In the area of multiracial identification, there was no evidence that multiracial young adults who reported their racial category as multiracial versus monoracial exhibited higher well-being outcomes. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Chapter 1 – Introduction
• Chapter 2 – Review of the Literature
  • Defining What it Means to be Multiracial
  • Multiracial Identity Models
  • Factors Influencing Well Being and Identity Development
    • Family environment
    • School, Friends and Neighborhood Environments
    • Generational/Societal Acceptance
    • Multiracial Change From Adolescence to Young Adulthood
    • College Experience
  • Adjustment Outcomes in Multiracial Young People
    • Self Esteem
    • Psychological, Behavior and Health Outcomes Using Add Health Data
• Chapter 3 – Statement of Problem
• Chapter 4 – Method
  • Design Statement
  • Participants
  • Measures
  • Procedures
• Chapter 5 – Results
  • Preliminary Analyses
  • Hypotheses 1a and 1b
  • Hypothesis 2
  • Hypothesis 3
  • Additional Analyses
• Chapter 6 – Discussion
  • Summary
  • Multiracial Young Adults and Well-being
  • Adolescent Predictors of Well-being in Multiracial Young Adults
  • Multiracial Identity Development and Well-being
  • Limitations
  • Implications for Practice
  • Areas of Future Research
• Appendix A – Add Health Project Description
• Appendix B – Initial and Final Items
• Appendix C – Wave I and Wave III Item Comparison
• References

LIST OF TABLES

1. Comparison Psychological Adjustment, Behaviors and Health/Somatization Significant Findings
2. Demographic comparisons of retained and removed participants
3. SEM measurement model fit indices (whole sample Wave I-III subset 8,978)
4. Summary of Initial and Final Latent Constructs and Factors
5. M, SD and Intercorrelations among predictor and outcome variables using Wave I-III subset of 8,978 participants
6. M, SD and Intercorrelations among predictor and outcome variables using Wave I-III subset of 402 multiracial participants.
7. SEM Single and Multi-group Model Fit Indices
8. Multi-group Comparisons on Factor Loadings for the Measurement Model
9. Factor loadings and structural paths released
10. Racial Identification Change from Wave I to Wave III
11. Multiracial identification and Wave III dependent factors
12. College vs. non-college participants compared at Wave I factors
13. Wave I parental income and Wave III outcome factors – Pearson correlation and simple regression
14. Race specific categories using Wave III subset of 14,644
15. Means, Standard Deviations for Wave III outcomes for monoracial groups and selective multiracial groups
16. Significant ANOVA results shown across Wave III dependent factors for specific multiracial groups

LIST OF FIGURES

1. SEM Initial Measurement and Structural Model
2. SEM Final Measurement and Structural Model
3. SEM Final Multi-group Structural Model with Path Coefficients

Read the entire dissertation here.

Challenges and Resilience in the Lives of Multiracial Adults: The Development and Validation of a Measure

Nazish M. Salahuddin

University of Maryland, College Park
2008
141 pages

Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2008

The purpose of the present study was to develop and validate the Multiracial Challenges and Resilience Scale (MCRS). The MCRS is a measure of the types of challenges (i.e., Others’ Surprise/Disbelief Reactions, Lack of Family Acceptance/Understanding, Multiracial Discrimination, Feelings of Disconnection from Family and Friends) and resilience (i.e., Appreciation of Human Differences, Multiracial Pride) experienced by Multiracial adults. Participants (N = 317) included a national sample of individuals who identified their biological parents as representing two or more different racial groups. All participants resided in large metropolitan areas within the continental United States at the time of data collection. Data were collected through the use of an internet survey containing the MCRS and measures used to assess convergent and discriminant validity. Internal consistency estimates of subscales ranged from .76 to .83. Convergent validity was supported through positive relations of the Challenge subscales with depression and positive relations of the Resilience scales with self-esteem. Discriminant validity was supported through the absence of correlations between the Challenges scales and Orderliness and lack of relationship between the Resilience scales and Social Desirability. Directions for future research and the limitations of this study are discussed.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• Chapter 1: Introduction
  • Theoretical Basis
  • Definitions: Race and Racism
  • Racism and Multiracial Adults
  • Research Summary of Multiracial Challenges and Resilience
  • Race-related Challenges
  • Positive Adaptations
  • Shih and Sanchez (2005): A comprehensive literature review
  • Current measures
  • Conclusion
• Chapter 2: Review of the Literature
  • Resilience Theory and Critical Race Theory
    • Resilience Theory
    • Resilience and Critical Race Theory
  • Race-related Challenges
    • Racism
    • Social Invalidation
    • Negative Psychological Outcomes
  • Resilience Gained Through Multiracial Experience
    • Enhanced Social Functioning
    • Positive Psychological Outcomes
  • Shih and Sanchez (2005): A comprehensive Literature Review
  • Current Measures
  • Conclusion
• Chapter 3: Method and Results
  • Phase One: MCRS Item Development
    • Phase One Method
    • Phase One Hypotheses
    • Phase One Results
  • Phase Two: Factor Analyses and Initial Reliability and Validity Estimates
    • Phase Two Method
      • Participants
      • Procedure
      • Measures
      • Phase Two Hypotheses
      • Phase Two Analyses
      • Phase Two Results
      • Demographic Information for Sample A
      • Factor analyses for Challenges Scale: Sample A
      • Demographic information for Sample B
      • Factor analyses for Challenges Scale: Sample B
      • Factor analyses for Resilience Scale: Sample A
      • Factor analyses for Resilience Scale: Sample B

  • Description of Factors on the Multiracial Challenges and Resilience Scale
  • Descriptive Analyses: Description of Sample
  • Relationships Between Factors on the MCRS
    • Phase Three: Additional Reliability Estimates

      • Phase Three Method
        • Participants
        • Procedures
        • Measures
      • Phase Three Hypotheses
      • Phase Three Analysis
      • Phase Three Results
    • Post Hoc Analyses
      • Assessment of Mean Differences in MCRS scores
      • Assessment of the Usefulness of MCRS Subscales as Predictors of Self-esteem
      • Further investigation of the relationships of Disconnection and Multiracial
      • Pride with Self-esteem
• Chapter 4: Discussion
  • Description of sample
  • Potential Biases in the Data Due to Sampling Procedure
  • Hypothesized and actual factor structures of MCRS
  • Convergent and Discriminant Validity of the MCRS
  • Test Re-test Reliability
  • Post-hoc Analyses
  • Future Research and Possible Interventions
  • Limitations
  • Conclusion
• APPENDIX A: Multiracial Challenges and Resilience Scale
• APPENDIX B: Social Connectedness Scale
• APPENDIX C: Satisfaction with Life Scale
• APPENDIX D: Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale
• APPENDIX E: Multi-Ethnic Identity Measure
• APPENDIX F: Social Self-efficacy Scale
• APPENDIX G: Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale
• APPENDIX H: Order
• APPENDIX I: Marlowe-Crown Social Desirability Scale Form C
• APPENDIX J: Demographic Questionnaire
• References

LIST OF TABLES

• Table 1. Final items retained on Challenges scale for Sample A and Sample B
• Table 2. Final items retained on Resilience scale for Sample A and Sample B
• Table 3. Bivariate Correlations Among Scales and Internal Consistency Estimates,Means, Standard Deviations, Actual Ranges, and Possible Ranges of Measured Variables
• Table 4. Test Re-test Reliability Estimates for the Multiracial Risk and Resilience Subscales and Actual Range, Possible Range, and Alpha Coefficients
• Table 5. Summary of Hierarchical Regression Analyses Predicting Self-esteem
• Table 6. Summary of Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analyses Testing Multiracial Pride as a Moderator between Disconnection from Family and Friends and Self-esteem
• Table 7. Summary of Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analyses Testing Self-esteem as a Moderator between Disconnection from Family and Friends and Multiracial Pride

Read the entire dissertation here.

100% Multiracial

UrbanFaith.com
2010-06-11

Kyle Waalen

The latest Census estimates show that multiracial people are the fastest growing demographic group in the United States. Yet many still struggle with the question of how many boxes to check. Two Christian women share about the tension and joy of being young and multiracial in America.

Kristy McDonald and Alicia Edison have a lot in common. They are both 27, both Christian women, and they are both children of an African American father and Caucasian mother. If we’re living in a multiracial world, as current demographic trends reveal, then Kristy and Alicia reflect the new face of American society. But is America ready?

The 2010 U.S. Census has reignited the debate about how society pressures multiracial people to choose one race over the other. In fact, President Obama made headlines when he selected “Black” on his census form rather than checking multiple boxes. The boxes we choose indicate more than just the color of our skin. For many reasons, racial identity still matters in America.

UrbanFaith’s Kyle Waalen asked Kristy, a caregiver at a group home for adults with disabilities in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Alicia, a Ph.D. student in sociology at the University of North Texas, to offer their personal perspectives on the challenges of being a mixed-race person in a multiracial society that hasn’t yet figured out how to be multiracial…

…Do ever feel that, as a multiracial person, you fall between the cracks when it comes to racial labels?

KRISTY: First of all, I am multiracial, but my skin tone is very light. When I was younger, I was part of a club at my local YMCA. It was designed to help African American girls make good choices about going to college and doing well in school. When guest speakers came to talk to us, they didn’t know what to think about my skin color. All the other girls at the club where dark-skinned, but I was not.

ALICIA: A multiracial person may fall through the cracks if they choose not to define themselves within the categories that society assigns. On most forms, we are given an alternative of choosing “other.” “Other” is not okay. It is not sufficient. “Other” means that we will continue to be marginalized and that we don’t count. We should be given the option to name ourselves when and how we choose…

Read the entire article here.