Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

“Most people think that it’s obvious that races are real biological categories. However, most of the scholars who study race think that races are invented categories. When one group of people sets out to oppress another, they “racialize” them—that is, they think of them as fundamentally different from and, importantly, inferior to themselves. Prior to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, sub-Saharan Africans did not consider themselves members of a single, homogeneous “black” race. Instead, they identified themselves as members of any one of a number of distinct groups—as Akan, Wolof, Mbundu, etc. The idea of “blackness” was a European invention, designed to legitimize the oppression of Africans.”

The idea that races are invented will probably sound crazy to a lot of people. They’ll think of it as a silly idea that only an academic who’s out of touch with the real world could come up with. Surely, there are visible features such as skin color, hair texture, facial morphology, and body build that set the races apart from one another!” —David Livingstone Smith

Robert J. Benz, “Race Delusion: Lies That Divide Us,” The Huffington Post, June 1, 2016. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-benz/race-illusion-its-all-in-_b_10095430.html.

Who Is Multiracial? Assessing the Complexity of Lived Race

Posted in Articles, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2010-05-14 20:24Z by Steven

Who Is Multiracial? Assessing the Complexity of Lived Race

American Sociological Review
Volume 67, Number 4 (2002)
pages 614-627

David R. Harris, Deputy Provost, Vice Provost for Social Sciences, and Professor of Sociology
Cornell University

Jeremiah Joseph Sim
Univerisity of Michigan

Patterns of racial classification in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health are examined. The survey’s large sample size and multiple indicators of race permit generalizable claims about patterns and processes of social construction in the racial categorization of adolescents. About 12 percent of youth provide inconsistent responses to nearly identical questions about race, context affects one’s choice of a single-race identity, and nearly all patterns and processes of racial classification depend on which racial groups are involved. The implications of the findings are discussed for users of data on race in general, and for the new census data in particular.

Read or purchase the article here.

Tags: American Sociological Review, David Harris, David R. Harris, J. J. Sim, Jeremiah J. Sim, Jeremiah Joseph Sim

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Mixed Race Studies

Who Is Multiracial? Assessing the Complexity of Lived Race

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