Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

The Multiracial Category Movement originated in the 1980s when parents of biracial children began to challenge identification criteria on school data forms. By the 1990s, multiracial category advocates had shifted most of their energy to a campaign to secure the addition of a multiracial category on decennial census forms for the year 2000. Their efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. The debate concerning racial categories, however, extends well beyond census classifications.

Although it is difficult to reduce such a controversial and complex topic to a few words, multiracial category proponents appear to believe that the category will: (1) challenge the use of racial categorization by forcing society to acknowledge that race is too fluid to monitor in an increasingly diverse society; (2) promote racial harmony by identifying a group that is capable of bridging the gap between Blacks and Whites; and (3) allow mixed-race persons to self-identify and to acknowledge all aspects of their racial heritages. Although one can understand the appeal of and the potential merit to these claims, proponents fail to engage sufficiently the complex history and present reality of colorism.

The first argument—that a multiracial category will eliminate racial classification altogether and move society beyond racial divisions—is debatable. The adoption of a multiracial category is equally likely to contribute to the proliferation of racial categories rather than to their elimination. Even assuming, arguendo, that a multiracial category will cause society to recognize that race is too fluid to monitor, this claim assumes that along with racial classifications, discrimination will also disappear. But, one event need not follow the other. The fact that racial labels may no longer be handy does not mean that discrimination will disappear. Rather, the virus of discrimination may simply mutate or find another host. Because skin color has been used historically as a basis for subordination in this country, skin color may provide an alternative site. That is, in the future, skin color differences may increasingly perform the role played by racial categories today. In this new social context, multiracial individuals and other persons of color will still be subject to discrimination on the basis of skin color to the extent that their skin is too dark or too light.

The second argument—that a multiracial category will produce an identifiable class of people who will facilitate interracial communications between Blacks and Whites—sounds like a modern-day appeal for a buffer class (a class distinguishable by its lighter skin tone). In the United States, however, buffer classes have not historically acted as catalysts for interracial harmony. Rather, they have served to increase the status of those in the middle (the buffer class) without fundamentally challenging the status quo for those on the top and bottom.1 In Brazil and Latin American countries where buffer classes have existed historically, the same dynamic has occurred. Thus, while tending to improve the lot of some, buffer categories fail to challenge existing racial and color hierarchies. In future discussions, proponents of a multiracial category must come forth with evidence that history will not repeat itself in the current context. In short, they must explain how a multiracial category will avoid simply reinforcing the existing racial and color hierarchy.

The third argument—that a multiracial category will allow mixed-race persons to self-identify and to acknowledge the totality of their racial heritages—is intuitively appealing. It seems that a goal of multiracial category proponents is to challenge the continued application of the one-drop rule (e.g., the notion that a person is Black if she has a trace of blackness in her physical appearance or in her ancestry). Again, this goal seems fair, neutral, and perhaps even laudable. However, as I explain below, an unintended consequence or negative externality of this objective must be considered: mixed-racial heritage and skin color may operate to elevate the status of lighter-skinned multiracial individuals, while doing nothing to alleviate the subordination of those who are darker or to change the idea that Black is undesirable.

Trina Jones, “Shades of Brown: The Law of Skin Color,” Duke Law Journal, Volume 49, Number 6 (April 2000): 1521-1525.

Aisha Khan Lecture – New York University Professor Aisha Khan Speaks on Multiculturalism

Posted in Articles, Brazil, Caribbean/Latin America, Media Archive, Social Science, United States, Women on 2009-11-06 20:37Z by Steven

Aisha Khan Lecture – New York University Professor Aisha Khan Speaks on Multiculturalism

St. Augustine News – STAN
University of the West Indies
July-September 2006
Page 24

Alake Pilgrim

[Article copied in full for readability. To read in original print layout version (with photographs), click here.]

On the surface of things, Professor Aisha Khan, lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at New York University, might seem like a poster-child for multiculturalism. Born in Bangladesh and raised in California, her research originally took her among the Garifuna people of Honduras. Her first visit to Trinidad was in 1984, and from 1987 to 1989 she conducted research among Trinidadians of East Indian descent in agricultural communities in the southern part of the island to which she has returned several times over the years.

However, Professor Khan, whose research is concerned with religious identity, race relations, social stratification and migration histories, took a very critical perspective on multiculturalism in her lecture. She questioned the extent to which this “slippery term”, which calls for the equal recognition of different “cultures” and “races”, can meaningfully foster greater harmony and equality in society.

Understanding the multiple meanings of multiculturalism requires an analysis of the changing definitions of culture, nationality, religion, race and colour in different contexts. As part of this process, Profesor Khan examined three models of multiculturalism – in the United States (US), Brazil and Trinidad.

In the US, she argued, the multicultural alternative to the “one-drop rule” of non-white inferiority and the assimilationist melting-pot narrative, proposes celebrating the multiple cultures (often referred to as “races”) that make up US society. This trend is evident in articles featuring photos of “mixed race” celebrities like Jessica Alba and Vin Diesel as the new faces of beauty. But does this concept of multiculturalism really unseat the reigning Euro-American, middle-class ideal? To paraphrase Professor Khan, does making difference “cool” actually address structural inequality in societies, such as unequal access to resources like income, housing and education?

She took that question to Brazil, where the idea that miscegenation (a “mixed race” population) and non-racialism (deemphasizing the role of race in the society) had brought about a unified Brazilian nationalism, is currently being critiqued as myth. Contentious issues of affirmative action and a political quota system are now being debated in the public sphere. Paradoxically, Professor Khan stated, the affirmative action approach to multiculturalism both undermines and reinforces the foundations of social inequality, in that it pushes toward more fixed definitions of racial categories supporting faulty race-based assumptions. In addition, such an initiative continues to make race – a biological fallacy and social variable – one of the most central aspects of human identification.

On the other hand, she opined, trying to simply eliminate race as a category of identification doesn’t work either, because the historical, legal, social and economic systems of power built on concepts of race, persist throughout the world today.

She then turned to Trinidad, which she described as being structured under colonialism according to the hierarchy of plantation society, in which black people of African descent occupied the lowest tier of the social pyramid. Independence society, she stated, was built on Afro-Euro foundations, with the attempt by some to have a multi-cultural, multi-racial “rainbow” society that was quintessentially Trinbagonian. At the same time, the society faced the conundrum of a perceived deep-seated duality and supposed hostility between people of African and East Indian descent, which was encouraged by the colonial masters and entrenched by post-independence partisan politics. This conflict centres around competition for equal resources, as well as the question of what really constitutes equal representation.

While very real divisions exist, Professor Khan expressed the view that this version of irresolvable conflict between people of African and East Indian descent, denied the reality that people in Trinidad have been living, loving, working and struggling together practically from the moment they set foot on the island.

So, in light of these case studies, what was Professor Khan’s conclusion regarding multiculturalism’s potential to bring about greater equality? Not an overly favourable one… She suggested an alternative treatment of “race” and “culture” that addressed their social significance, without freezing people into fixed racial and cultural categories. And spoke firmly against using multiculturalism and other celebrations of diversity, as a way of denying ongoing discrimination, or de-emphasizing the importance of providing equal access to resources for the underprivileged and excluded members of society. Professor Khan’s most recent book is Callaloo Nation: Metaphors of Race and Religious Identity among South Asians in Trinidad.

Tags: Aisha Khan, Alake Pilgrim, miscegenation, St. Augustine News, Trinidad, University of the West Indies

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Mixed Race Studies

Aisha Khan Lecture – New York University Professor Aisha Khan Speaks on Multiculturalism

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