Mixed Race Studies

Those Discriminated Against Are Now the Discriminators

Indian Country Today Media Network
2015-12-31

Juilanne Jennings

For some odd and stupid reason many of us continue to be color struck. I really think most of us are ignorant or at the very least forgetful. Black people who look “white” is not a new phenomenon. In the United States, anyone with a trace of African blood, no matter how remote, has been considered black. Following the centuries-long evolution of Eurocentrism, a concept geared to protecting white racial purity and social privilege, race has been constructed and regulated by the “one-drop” rule (i.e., hypodescent), which obligated individuals to identify as black or white, in effect erasing mixed-race individuals from the social landscape. Walter Plecker, first registrar of Virginia’s Bureau of Vital Statistics, serving from 1912 to 1946, had brought racial policies to blood and bone level.

Now, deep into the 21st century, the socially constructed racial ladder continues to keep people of color, including individuals of mixed race, from enjoying the same privileges as Euro-Americans. Moreover, as we try to march forward with new members of a new multiracial movement pointing the way toward equality, those who have been discriminated against are now becoming the discriminators…

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‘Here Comes Honky!’: Why I Married a White Guy

Indian Country Today Media Network
2016-01-06

Terese Mailhot

When my sister’s dates pulled into our driveway my mother would yell, “Here comes Honky!” My sister was always livid, embarrassed, but still, she went out with white men most of her adult life. I always thought she was a traitor. I thought someday my Indian prince would come: the son of an activist in braids, with a mind full of theory and a stoic wisdom. But surprisingly I fell in love with a white man, with dusty blond hair and blue eyes.

I was always told we were a dying breed. “Meet a Native man,” my mother said. Blood quantum is important where I’m from. Land rights, healthcare, housing, and assistance all deal with blood quantum and how Indian one is ‘officially.’ Besides that, marrying Native was always what I dreamed of.

For generations Native women could not govern their own bodies, because white men and officials dictated we were their wards. We were subject to exploitation, objectification, and degradation at the hands of white people. Why would I ever want to give my body or love to a white man, a man who could never understand my grief or lineage?…

Read the entire article here.