Mixed Race Studies

There is good reason to expect that in the United States today individuals who identify as multiracial experience negative treatment. Multiracial individuals report encountering discrimination and microaggressive behaviors such as racial exclusion and marginalization, exoticization, invalidation of their racial identities, and racial essentialization.² These behaviors are in part a result of the kinds of racism that all groups of color face, and in part products of monoracism, a system which privileges single-race categories over racial mixing.³ This system leads to the systematic exclusion and reduction of multiracial identities. For example, during much of the history of the United States, the “one-drop rule” (the idea that every person with any black ancestry was to be identified as only black) was both a social and a legal principle that was heavily enforced.”⁴

Monoracism and the discriminatory and microaggressive behavior it produces continue to affect multiracial individuals today. For example, there have been numerous cases of workplace racial discrimination presented to courts by multiracial plaintiffs alleging the violation of Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.⁵ A common type of microaggressive behavior found in many of the court cases was racial essentialization; individuals were assigned to a single, monoracial group by others despite their multiracial background.⁶ For example, multiracial individuals with a black parent are typically described and treated as if they are solely African American.⁷ Even the courts themselves generally describe multiracial people with any black ancestry as simply black. Many scholars who are supporters of the “Personal Identity Equality” approach have critiqued this pattern, arguing that the “misrecognition of one’s identity” is a form of “social subordination,”⁸ although it is not against the law to refuse to acknowledge the racial identity that a person claims.

Mary E. Campbell and Sylvia M. Emmanuel, “On The Edge: Multiracial Groups and Public Policies,” in How Public Policy Impacts Racial Inequality, Josh Grimm and Jaime Loke eds. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2019), 96.

Girl, Woman, Other

Hamish Hamilton (an imprint of Penguin UK)
2019-05-02
464 pages
Hardback ISBN: 9780241364901
Ebook ISBN: 9780241985007

Bernardine Evaristo

Teeming with life and crackling with energy – a love song to modern Britain, to black womanhood, to the ever-changing heart of London

Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years.

Joyfully polyphonic and vibrantly contemporary, this is a gloriously new kind of history, a novel of our times: celebratory, ever-dynamic and utterly irresistible.

Mulattoes Cannot Vote Under the “Grandfather Clause.”

The Progressive Farmer
Winston, North Carolina
Tuesday, 1902-09-30
page 5, column 4
Source: Chronicling America (ISSN 2475-2703), Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

The Observer is in receipt of the following from a friend at Carthage:

“A question which is having some discussion here is: Can a mulatto whose father was a white man register under the ‘grandfather clause?’”

“Now it is a generally accepted fact that most mulattoes are such from the fact that their fathers and not their mothers were white. Would this general application be sufficient grounds for a general mulatto registration? If not, could a mulatto whose mother was a negro but whose father is unknown register according to law? Is the burden upon the applicant for registration to prove that his father was a white man and could vote prior to 1867?”

“Your subscribers would be pleased to have you give some editorial answers and explanations to the above questions. I am certain such would be of interest to many people throughout the State at this time and the independence of your paper renders it the logical medium through which such information can do the most good.”

Assuming that the mulatto was the illegitimate son of a white man (which must be assumed, as marriages between whites and blacks is and was unlawful) the mulatto could not vote, as the law does not recognize that an illegitimate has any father and unless the said mulatto is otherwise qualified he cannot get in under the “grandfather clause.”

As nearly all negroes were slaves prior to their emancipation the presumption is that the grandfather of any mulatto was disqualified from voting prior to 1868, and the burden rests upon him to show to the contrary before he shall be entitled to register or vote. —Charlotte Observer.

Black, White and Red All Over: Genevieve Gaignard

Musée: Vanguard of Photography Culture
2019-04-24

Ashley Yu

Genevieve Gaignard This American Beauty, 2019. Vintage magazine cutouts, clear acrylic, on panel, 48 x 36 x 2.5 in. (121.9 x 91.4 x 6.3 cm). Courtesy the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago.

Genevieve Gaignard’s first solo show “Black White and Red All Over” is currently exhibited at the Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago from April 5th-May 24th. The exhibition showcases Gaignard’s new body of mixed media artwork and a new site-specific installation. In this exhibition, the artist speaks on the intersecting representational issues of race, femininity and class in modern American society.

Ashley Yu: Why do you use photo collages of magazine cutouts as your medium of choice?

Genevieve Gaignard: I wouldn’t say this is my medium of choice per se. It’s more that I’m an artist that works in various mediums (photography, installation, sculpture and collage) in order to address the topics of gender, class and racial injustice in America. For me, it’s very instinctual to work with magazine images. I grew up collaging my bedroom walls as a teenager. I feel like, in a way, I’m taking from that memory and applying it to my practice…

…Ashley: You often refer to the “invisibility” of growing up mixed-race in America. Would you explain that to us?

Genevieve: Sure. My particular experience growing up in a predominately white town and looking white to most people felt like I wasn’t really seen at all…

Read the entire interview here.