Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

Multiracialism should not be confused with multiculturalism. Where multiculturalism generally promotes the acceptance of divergent people and cultures for the sake of diversity, multiracialism maintains a decidedly conservative agenda of colorblind ideology that strives to blur the color line at the expense of racialized (particularly black) politics, culture, and identity. (I say particularly black because, as critics have long argued, blackness is one of the most, if not the most explicitly, racialized identities in the United States). The driving force behind multiracialism is not a celebration of racial and ethnic diversity, but rather a disappearing of this diversity and a supposed de-emphasis of race. Despite its idealized intentions, what multiracialism tends to achieve is a re-emphasis of rigid racial classifications by subsequently “othering” those who cannot “transcend” race. The politics of multiracialism can only apply to the people who are privileged enough to be seen as, or who see themselves as, “race neutral” or crossover figures, or as racially ambiguous. It does little to affect the lived realities of those whom society still continues to stereotype and demonize on a daily basis as a result of their explicit racialization, or identifiable racial identity. Furthermore it disregards and de-legitimizes people who choose to identify with, and take pride in their race or ethnicity, whatever that means to them.

Kirin Wachter-Grene, “Charles W. Chesnutt and the Engendering of a Post-Reconstruction Multiracial Politics,” The Conversation, Number 2 (2009-2010). http://mals.retroforward.com/papers/charles-w-chesnutt-and-the-engendering-of-a-post-r.shtml

The Antisocial Escape of William Faulkner’s Tragic Mulattoes

Posted in Dissertations, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive on 2011-10-01 21:01Z by Steven

The Antisocial Escape of William Faulkner’s Tragic Mulattoes

University of Georgia
2008
34 pages

Courtney Thomas

A Thesis Submitted to the Honors Council of the University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree BACHELOR OF ARTS in ENGLISH with HONORS

With the characters of Charles Bon in Absalom, Absalom! (1936) and Joe Christmas in Light in August (1932), William Faulkner constructs two masculine versions of the traditionally female tragic mulatto narrative concerning the plight of a mixed-race individual. Ostensibly, the philandering Charles Bon and the violent Joe Christmas exemplify the “strong and silent” ultra-masculine stereotype and thus have no connection with the vulnerable and sensitive tragic mulatto female. However, Bon and Christmas are connected to this usually female archetype because both men are troubled by the internal conflict of identity that is central to the tragic mulatto myth. The men likewise fear the tragic mulatto’s fates of societal isolation and loneliness. Yet unlike the passive female who exercises little to no agency in preventing her tragic fate, Bon and Joe actively resist their prescribed fates through the manifestation of qualities indicative of antisocial personality disorder. In this thesis, I will explore the factors that lead to the development of antisocial qualities in these two characters, how the men utilize these qualities as methods of combating the confinements of the tragic mulatto myth, and how the two characters’ attempts to escape their stereotypical fates ultimately prove to be futile.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CHAPTERS
- 1. INTRODUCTION
- 2. THE ABANDONED
  - The Elusive Father
  - A Life Without Connection
- 3. THE TRANSFERRAL OF HURT
  - The Seduction of the Sutpens
  - The Two Joes
  - Male Revenge
- 4. THE FEAR OF THE FATHER
  - The Sutpen Curse
  - The Fear of Family
- 5. WALKING INTO DEATH
  - The Failure to Escape the Myth
WORKS CITED

Read the entire thesis here.

Tags: Courtney Thomas, University of Georgia, William Faulkner

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