Mixed Race Studies

Passings That Pass in America: Crossing Over and Coming Back to Tell About It

The History Teacher
Volume 40, Number 4 (August 2007)
32 paragraphs

Donald Reid, Professor of History
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

TEMPORARILY PASSING as an other is a universal fantasy and a not uncommon practice. From Arab potentates dressed as commoners to check on the governance of their realms, to women going into combat as male soldiers, it has a long history, and passing is a phenomenon of particular resonance in the contemporary United States. In the affluent postwar decades, the belief that the middle class would come to encompass all was challenged by white middle-class exclusion of African-Americans from membership in this classless utopia, and of women from a patriarchal order. Today, this ideology of prosperity has changed; it is now predicated on the permanent existence of extremes in wealth and poverty, the unrelenting insecurity of an unconstrained market society and the emotional costs of gender norms. These are the contexts for the appearance of a number of widely-read accounts of race, class, and gender passing in the United States. 

 American culture glorifies the self-made man and this self-making extends to individual identity. The United States celebrates geographical and social mobility and the very anomie this produces is also the site of secular rebirths. In this essay, I will examine a literary genre that draws upon the American faith in self-transformation in an effort to confront the social boundaries that define its limits: narratives of white middle-class individuals who seek to live as an other for a while with the aim of revealing to their social group of origin its role in creating and sustaining the marginalization and oppression of the other whose identity they temporarily assume. John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me and Grace Halsell’s Soul Sister and Bessie Yellowhair were products of an era when the challenges that racial integration presented to white middle-class society gave new impetus to the tradition of participant-observer social scientists and journalists living as workers and reporting on the experience. I conclude with a reading of recent accounts of inter- and intra-class passing: Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, and Norah Vincent’s memoir of gender passing, Self-Made Man…

Read the entire article here.

The Social Ontology of Race in the “Post-Racial” Era

The University of Memphis Department of Philosophy
7th Annual Philosophy Graduate Student Association Conference
2011-02-11 through 2011-02-12

Keynote Speaker

Jennifer Lisa Vest, Assistant Professor of Philosophy
University of Central Florida

In the past several decades, mainstream philosophical discourse has examined the ontology of race from a number of philosophical vantage points. During this period, thinkers have called our philosophical attention to the widespread acknowledgment in the scientific community that the concept of race has no biological basis. However, African American scholars in a variety of disciplines have been debating the question of the reality of race since the late nineteenth century. Of particular import has been the question of the ontological currency of the concept of race apart from its dubious biological status.

In contemporary academic discourse, the social ontology of race is a vibrant and dynamic question with implications across various traditions and subfields within the discipline of philosophy in both the analytic and continental traditions and beyond. Interdisciplinary by nature, discussion surrounding this question has reverberations in companion disciplines such as ethnic studies, political theory, philosophy of law, history, feminist theory, queer theory, gender studies, sociology, anthropology, and psychology.

Just what does it mean to be racialized as non-white in American culture today? To what extent does such a classification still carry negative connotations? How has the growing population of “mixed race” people affected how race is understood in America? How, if at all, has the election of our first black/ “mixed race” president changed the social ontology of race in America? Does this landmark event signify the onset of a “post-racial” era? How do these questions intersect with other issues of social ontology? These are the kinds of questions we hope to address in our 7th annual Philosophy Graduate Student Association conference at the University of Memphis. We invite philosophy papers on any of these topics, or any related topic. Interdisciplinary approaches are welcomed.

Deadline for submission of papers is January 1, 2011 (extended). Papers should be sent as Word documents not to exceed 12 double-spaced pages. Papers should be suitable for blind review, including a cover letter with all relevant personal information (name, contact information, university affiliation).

For more information, click here.

With Shades of Gray

Emory Magazine
Emory University
Spring 2009: Coda: A Changing Country

Reflections on the Inauguration of President Barack Obama

Taharee Jackson, ’10 PhD

The last thing I could afford to do was attend the presidential inauguration at the National Mall, but I simply couldn’t miss it. I had to go and represent my multiracial family. As a multiracial woman, I am seldom presented with the opportunity to see someone just like me in the public eye.

Tiger Woods has made multiraciality somewhat “cool,” yet people still have trouble identifying him in photos. That being said, to have the entire globe’s gaze finally affixed on a biracial person—on Barack Obama—compelled me to travel to Washington, D.C., to support him. He wouldn’t know I was there, but my family and I would . . . and it would mean the world to us.

…I braved subzero temperatures, no sleep, millions of people, closed train stations, and hours of no food or bathroom usage, not because I think of Obama as our first black president. True, I am part black, but so is he. He is part black. Barack Obama is half black and half white—he is biracial. To acknowledge one part of him—his blackness—is certainly not to deny his whiteness, unless we deny him the right to identify himself…

Read the entire article here.

The best fiction and poetry of 2010

The Washington Post
Friday, 2010-12-10

…THE GIRL WHO FELL FROM THE SKY, by Heidi W. Durrow (Algonquin, $22.95). When several family members fall off the roof of a Chicago apartment building, the sole survivor is biracial Rachel, who goes to live with her grandmother in an African American neighborhood. –Lisa Page…

Read the entire article here.

Why Biracial Means Black: The History of Race in America Means Most Blacks Are Biracial to Some Degree

The Root
2010-12-14

Lauren Williams, Associate Editor

Checking a census box that says “black” doesn’t mean you’re denying your white ancestry. It’s just how we roll in America.

When Halle Berry scored her milestone Oscar win in 2002, nobody was screaming from the mountaintops that the first biracial woman had won the Academy Award for best actress. It’s not too often that you hear someone calling Barack Obama the country’s first biracial president. And although I know people who are biracial and multiracial who primarily refer to themselves as such, I’ve also heard most of them refer to themselves as black.

My own mother, who is Creole and fair skinned—to the point where some people assume she is white—will tell you that she is black if you ask, although her answer could be a lot more complicated if she wanted it to be. But isn’t it the same for many black people in this country? It’s generally safe to assume that most black Americans are multiracial. As The Root’s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., has pointed out, statistics demonstrate that 58.5 percent of black Americans have at least 12.5 percent European ancestry.

That’s why a new study about how biracial Americans of black-and-white ancestry often self-identify as black comes as no surprise. What is surprising is that the researchers refer to this decision as “passing for black.” As if not mentioning your white ancestry when asked to identify yourself is somehow akin to light-skinned blacks of the past having to completely reject—sometimes forever—their heritage and families in order to blend in to white society.

No, it’s not the same, and for a lot of reasons: A biracial person can check “black” on a census form and 10 seconds later start talking fondly and proudly about his or her white mother or father (anyone who’s heard Obama talk about his family knows this). For biracial or multiracial people to call themselves black is not a wholesale denial of their past and family. It’s not a lie. It’s not, heaven forbid, a ploy to get minority-based benefits, as was suggested by researchers behind the study. It is, for better or worse, a by-product of living in a country that is only a few generations removed from Jim Crow and the one-drop rule…

Read the entire article here.

Passing for Black?  Biracial Americans Are Increasingly ‘Passing for Black’

The Root
2010-12-14

Thomas Chatterton Williams

A new study posits that black-white biracial adults are increasingly choosing, like President Obama, to emphasize their blackness. But in this country, “black” has always been a mongrel affair.

It created a minor media frenzy last spring when President Barack Obama checked the “Black, African Am., or Negro” box on his census form and, as an item on The Root put it, “set the post-racial dream back 400 years.” Elizabeth Chang, a mother of (Asian-Caucasian) biracial daughters and an editor at the Washington Post, excoriated him on that paper’s op-ed page for failing to “celebrate” his biracial ancestry. And Michelle Hughes, president of the Chicago Biracial Family Network, voiced a complaint that many seemed to share when she observed that “the multiracial community feels a sense of disappointment that he refuses to identify with us.”

A new study in the December 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly, entitled “Passing as Black: Racial Identity Work Among Biracial Americans,” is likely to rekindle the debate by providing evidence that black-white biracial adults are increasingly choosing, like Obama, to emphasize their blackness and downplay their white ancestry. In what the study calls “a striking reverse pattern of passing,” a majority of respondents reported that they “pass” as black….

…Expressing pride in their blackness—that is a good thing, and the authors of the study use their data to make the case that this phenomenon of reverse passing demonstrates that blackness itself is less stigmatized today than in the past, which is certainly evidence of progress. However, what is troubling about the study is also what I find so disturbing about the criticism surrounding Obama’s census decision—namely, the flawed premise that in America, an opposition can exist between “biracial” and “black.”

“Today’s passing,” Nikki Khanna, a sociologist at the University of Vermont and the study’s lead author, says, “is about adopting an identity that contradicts your self-perception of race—and it tends to be contextual.” In other words, biracial blacks, who are themselves aware that they are not simply black but, rather, are something other, are making the conscious decision—at least in certain social situations—to project what must therefore be a less-than-authentic black identity.

But what the advocates for biracial self-identification, as well as the authors of this study, fail to grasp is precisely what I have always been so proud of Obama for recognizing and exemplifying: Blackness in America is by definition a mongrel affair. Biracial blacks do not have to “pass” as black; they just are black…

Read the entire article here.

Development and Initial Validation of the Biracial Experiences of Discrimination Inventory

University of La Verne, La Verne, California
March 2010
329 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3430242
ISBN: 9781124295695

Amanda L. Y. Rivera

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Psychology University of La Verne College of Arts and Sciences Psychology Department

The purpose of this dissertation was to develop and initially validate an instrument that measures multiracial individuals with Asian and White descent experiences of discrimination. Results from the principal components analysis using data from a web-based sample of 185 multiracial individuals with Asian and White descent yielded a five-factor simple structure of the Biracial Experiences of Discrimination Inventory (B-REDI): Biracial Response to Monoracial Context (6 items), Racial Microaggressions (6 items), Confusion of Interracial Family Relations (4 items), Assumptions of Marginality (3 items), and Internalized Multiracial Racism (3 items). Initial evidences of internal reliability, convergent validity and known-groups validity were found. An evaluation of internal consistency suggested that the B-REDI reflected dimensions of multiracial racism and supported initial evidence of the reliability of the five factors that emerged. In support of convergent validity, multiracial experiences of discrimination were positively correlated with perceived general ethnic discrimination, Asian American racism-related stress, a universal-diverse orientation, awareness and acceptance of others similarities and differences, as well as awareness, sensitivity, and receptivity towards racial diversity and multiculturalism. Also in support of convergent validity, multiracial experiences of racism were negatively correlated with colorblind racial attitudes. Evidence for known-groups validity was demonstrated through statistically significantly higher levels of multiracial experiences reported among multiracial individuals with Asian and White descent (n = 184) than monoracial individuals (n = 325). However, multiracial individuals with Asian and White descent (n = 184) did not report multiracial experiences of racism at a statistically significantly higher level when compared to multiracial individuals of other ethnic backgrounds (n = 263). This finding suggests that having a mixed race background may represent a factor that exerts an overall greater impact compared to the specific ethnic group make-up of an individual. Study limitations as well as research and clinical implications are discussed.

Purchase the dissertation here.

Hypodescent: New Work by Gabriel Mejia

University of Wisconsin, Madison
George L. Mosse Humanities Building
7th Floor Gallery Room 7240
455 North Park Street
2010-12-11 through 2010-12-16

Gabriel Mejia

All events are free and open to the public.

Closing Reception: 2010-12-16, 19:00-21:00 CST (Local Time).

A meditation on identity and the social constructs of racial assignment. Featuring printmaking and video installations by 2nd year MFA graduate student, Gabriel Mejia.

For more information, click here.

Who’s White? Who’s Black? Who Knows?

Time Magazine: Healthland
Friday, 2010-12-10

Jeffrey Kluger, Senior Editor

Never mind what you’ve heard. Halle Berry was not the first black woman to win an Academy Award for Best Actress. She was actually the 74th white one. And never mind all this talk about America electing its first black President;  Barack Obama is actually the 44th white man to hold the job.

That, at any rate, is as fair a conclusion as any, given that Berry and Obama and millions like them are the products of one black parent and one white one. And yet it’s a conclusion that almost no one ever reaches. Part-black generally means all-black in Americans’ minds. Just as part-Asian or part-Hispanic or part-anything-else usually puts individuals in those minority-groups’ camps. Such a curious bias is as old as the nation itself, and a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology illustrates just how stubborn it is—and suggests just what may be behind it.

It was in 1662 that the colony of Virginia first tried to codify the legal definition of people whose racial pedigree was less than completely pure. To make things simple in a land in which plantation owners were already taking sexual liberties with their slaves, the lawmakers established what they called the “one-drop” rule—also known as hypodescent—declaring that any person with mixed blood who resulted from such a pairing would be assigned the race of the nonwhite parent…

…But this much can be said for the folks who wrote such nasty rules: They may have been no better than most other Americans, but they were no worse either, at least in their tendency to apply the hypodescent rule in their own minds, often unconcsiously. To test how this phenomenon applies today, a team of Harvard University psychologists led by Ph.D. student Arnold K. Ho gathered a sample group of black, white and Asian volunteers and showed them computer-generated images of individuals designed to look either black-white or Asian-white. They also showed them family trees that depicted various degrees of racial commingling…

Study Looks at Biracial Assignment

The Harvard Crimson
2010-12-13

Hana N. Rouse, Crimson Staff Writer

People classify biracial children as members of the minority parent group

People have the tendency to classify those of biracial descent as members of their minority parent group rather than as equal members of both races, according to a recent study published by Harvard psychologists.

The study, led by Harvard psychology graduate student Arnold K. Ho and co-authored by Harvard Professors James Sidanius and Mahzarin R. Banaji and Vanderbilt Professor Daniel T. Levin, employed computer generated faces of varying ethnicities and fictional family trees to test people’s intuitive racial classifications.

Study results suggest that participants classified half-white and half-minority persons as part of a minority. Researchers used computer generated faces of varying ethnicities and fictional family trees to test people’s preferences…

Read the entire article here.