Mixed Race Studies

The demand for multiracial identity for the children of interracial marriage, however, may be explained in terms of a desire for status as long as we live in a society in which there is still a clear racial hierarchy. The demand that multiracial children be recognized as partly white did not come from blacks.  Nor is it surprising that Susan Graham, a major advocate for the multiracial category on the United States Census found an ally in Newt Gingrich, who opined that such a category might “‘be an important step toward transcending racial division.’” The enthusiasm for such alternative classifications leads skeptics to believe that this system of reclassification and the rhetoric of transcendence will make it easy to ignore the reality and the structure of racism.

Deborah W. Post, “Cultural Inversion and the One-Drop Rule: An Essay on Biology, Racial Classification, and the Rhetoric of Racial Transcendence,” Albany Law Review, Volume 72, Issue 4 (2009):925-926.

Cultural Inversion and the One-Drop Rule: An Essay on Biology, Racial Classification, and the Rhetoric of Racial Transcendence

Albany Law Review
Volume 72, Issue 4 (2009)
Pages 909-928

Deborah W. Post, Professor Emeritus of Law
Touro College, Jacob D. Fuchsberg School of Law
Central Islip, New York

The great paradox in contemporary race politics is exemplified in the narrative constructed by and about President Barack Obama. This narrative is all about race even as it makes various claims about the diminished significance of race: the prospect of racial healing, the ability of a new generation of Americans to transcend race or to choose their own identity, and the emergence of a postracial society. While I do not subscribe to the post-racial theories that have been floated in the press and other media, I do believe that something of great cultural significance occurred which made the candidacy and the election of Barack Obama possible. This essay is an attempt on my part to consider what that change might have been by examining the relationship between science and social change, language and cultural categories, and the role law has played, if any, in dismantling the structures of racism.

What I have to say has very little to do with biology, except to the extent that racial classification is a cultural practice that sometimes deploys biological arguments strategically. Early in the Twentieth century sociologists and anthropologists noted that in the United States, race was more a matter of caste than class and that, unlike other caste systems, it is not cultural, but “biological.” In a racial caste, one sociologist argued, “the criterion is primarily physiognomic, usually chromatic, with socio-economic differences implied.”  Another noted that “American caste is pinned not to cultural but to biological features—to color, features, hair form, and the like.” Biology was used in this early sociological literature on race in a way that made it synonymous with physical appearance or physical characteristics. In politics and legal discourse at the time, racial purity was about “blood” and rules of descent…

…In this article, my thesis is simple. If racial caste has been upended by changes in legal rules that created a hierarchical racial structure, its demise also has been hastened by the use of symbols, a strategy of cultural inversion with respect to the meaning of race.  The operative terms of a centuries-old debate have been inverted. Instead of policing racial purity with arguments about blood and biology or the modern version of them, DNA and genes, these instruments of exclusion, the tools of white supremacists and segregationists, have been used effectively, most recently by Barack Obama, to demonstrate the physical connection between groups that are still treated discursively, politically and socially, as racially distinct…

…The movement to escape the one-drop rule, the rule that examines blood lines as far back as five generations or more, if that is what the multiracial movement is all about, is not, as far as I know, a movement that began in the black community. A major proponent is a white woman, Susan Graham, founder of “Project RACE,” which is the acronym for Reclassify All Children Equally.  What Susan Graham demands is that the children of parents who come from different races be acknowledged as the product of both groups. In other words, this white mother of a child or children whose father is a black man demands that the public, the discourse, the political  instrumentalities, the private institutions, acknowledge the status of her child as white as well as black…

…The demand for multiracial identity for the children of interracial marriage, however, may be explained in terms of a desire for status as long as we live in a society in which there is still a clear racial hierarchy. The demand that multiracial children be recognized as partly white did not come from blacks.  Nor is it surprising that Susan Graham, a major advocate for the multiracial category on the United States Census found an ally in Newt Gingrich, who opined that such a category might “‘be an important step toward transcending racial division.’” The enthusiasm for such alternative classifications leads skeptics to believe that this system of reclassification and the rhetoric of transcendence will make it easy to ignore the reality and the structure of racism.

It may be that the promotion of a multiracial identity provides some white parents with the assurance that they have not been rejected by their own children. Their children are part of them and, therefore, partly white. People who cross racial lines to marry do not leave behind all of their attitudes towards race; their internalized assumptions about racial characteristics and racial hierarchy can be a source of misunderstanding, a vulnerability that at the very worst can injure or divide family members…

Read the entire article here.

Understanding Race: The Evolution of the Meaning of Race in American Law and the Impact of DNA Technology on its Meaning in the Future

Albany Law Review
Volume 72, Issue 4 (2009)
Pages 1113-1143

William Q. Lowe
Albany Law School

Race has played a decisive role in nearly all aspects of American society, yet its meaning in various contexts remains unclear.  Throughout history, individuals have struggled to define “race” as it pertains to science, society, and the law in particular. Although race became a part of the English language in the mid-sixteenth century, it did not take on its modern definition until the early nineteenth century. Scientific, social, and political interpretations of race have gone through an evolutionary process as well. After over two-hundred years of trying to understand its meaning, “[t]he word ‘race’ defies precise definition in American law.” Countless competing theories exist as to the definition and meaning of race, and the inability for one to earn universal support poses a significant problem to the American legal system. Despite the fact that numerous statutes have been enacted to prohibit racial discrimination throughout all aspects of American society, “the law has provided no consistent definition of race and no logical way to distinguish members of different races from one another.”

It has been argued that “race” was first used as a tool to classify individuals during the age of colonial exploration; however, this use was maintained for centuries. Today, classifications based on race are still present in America, and have been found to be permissible in some instances, such as when used to remedy instances of past discrimination. With the predominant role race continues to play in American society, to ensure that all are treated fairly under the law, it is imperative that a single definition of race is applied universally to all Americans. It is foreseeable that advances in science, particularly in DNA testing, will allow for a uniform method of determining one’s race.

This note will discuss the current lack of a settled definition of race in American Law, and the potential role DNA technology can play in remedying the problems associated with it. Part II of this Note will explore the concept of race by examining various definitions of race and how they have evolved into the modern definition. This section will additionally look at the historical understanding of the meaning of race, and the recent divergence from traditional thought. Part III of this Note will analyze the role of race throughout American legal history. This portion of the Note will address historical notions of race in America, the origin of the need to define race, and the treatment of race by the legislature and the courts. Part IV of this Note will discuss current DNA technology and the potential impact it may have of on modern concepts of race, particularly with regard to the law. It is foreseeable that advances in DNA technology will allow scientists to identify and classify individuals through an analysis of their genetic information.

The first legislative attempt at defining race took place in Virginia, nearly one-hundred years before America gained its independence from England, and it was enacted in response to the “uncertain status” of children born with parents of mixed race. The statute was concerned only with the status of mulatto children who were born to a black woman, and stated that the race of the mother would be used to determine the race of the child. This policy reflected the biological definition of race, as the skin color of the individual in question was determinative. This statute was in contrast to that of English law, where inheritance followed the paternal line. Ultimately, under the Virginia statute, children born of a free white man and his slave could potentially be considered to be slaves themselves.

The presence of many free blacks residing in Virginia quickly made this statute unworkable, because it was not easy to determine if a child’s black ancestry came from his or her mother’s side or his or her father’s side. The possibility that a white woman could have a child with a black man, whether he was a slave or a free man, resulted in mulatto children being exiled from Virginia, and ultimately led to the creation of “one-drop rules.” Such rules held that an individual would be classified as black, despite the fact that his or her genetic makeup was primarily white…

Subsequently, Virginia, as well as other states, passed similar laws aimed at the prevention of interracial marriages. Pursuant to such laws, any white person who married a non-white would be exiled from Virginia. The language used in the statute is striking, as interracial marriage is referred to as “that abominable mixture and spurious issue which hereafter may encrease in this dominion.” This serves as yet another example of the hierarchical system of classification based on race at this time in American history.

Later statutes based on the “one-drop rule” departed from the 1662 Virginia statute in the sense that they did not take a “physical appearance approach.” Such “[f]ormula-based definitions of race” became increasingly popular in the South, and Booker T. Washington provided an accurate description of what they entailed: “[I]f a person is known to have one percent of African blood in his veins, he ceases to be a white man. The ninety-nine percent of Caucasian blood does not weigh by the side of the one-percent of African blood. . . . The person is a Negro every time.” In practice, most states with race-based statutes formed under the “one-drop rule” held that individuals who had at least one black grandparent were legally black. It should be noted, however, that “as the likelihood that more biracial people could be classified as white… the laws became more restrictive… finally culminating in the one-drop rule…

Read the entire article here.