Mixed Race Studies

Interracial families face unique challenges because of the historical legacy of white supremacy, the long-standing social barriers against interracial marriage, and the cultural norm of racial homogeneity in marriage patterns.  For interracial families, racial socialization is complicated for important several reasons.  First, parents bring different racial identities, experiences, and ideologies to their relationship that may result in different ideas about how to racially socialize their children.  In addition, the politics of race in our society are such that their mixed-race children exist in a marginal and undefined space.  There is no clear community of mixed-race people or a comprehensive understanding of the mixed-race experience that can be used to guide racial socialization of mixed-race childrenin a positive, cohesive manner.  Unlike white or black children, most multiracial children do not have a parent with whom they can directly identify as a multiracial person.  Unless a parent is also mixed-race, the majority of mixed-race children learn about race from on or more adults who cannot completely understand their racial reality.  This means that most mixed-race children rarely have the luxury of being raised by a parent whose on racial identity and socialization process are relevant to their experience.

Rockquemore, Kerry Ann, Tracey Laszloffy, Julia Noveske. “It All Starts at Home: Racial Socialization in Multiracial Families”, In Mixed Messages: Multiracial Identities in the “Color-Blind” Era, edited by David L. Brunsma, 207.  Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006.

Mixed Messages: Multiracial Identities in the “Color-Blind” Era

Lynne Rienner Publishers
2006
405 pages
Hardcover: ISBN: 978-1-58826-372-8
Paperback: ISBN: 978-1-58826-398-8

Edited by David L. Brunsma, Professor of Sociology
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

The experiences and voices of multiracial individuals are challenging current categories of race, profoundly altering the meaning of racial identity and in the process changing the cultural fabric of the nation. Exploring this new reality, the authors of Mixed Messages examine what we know about multiracial identities—and the implications of those identities for fundamental issues of justice and equality.

Read the entire introduction here.

Table of Contents

• Mixed Messages: Doing Race in the Color-Blind Era—David L. Brunsma
• SHIFTING COLOR LINES.
  • Defining Race: Comparative Perspectives—F. James Davis.
  • Black, Honorary White, White: The Future of Race in the United States?—Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and David G. Embrick.
  • Racial Justice in a Black/Nonblack Society—George Yancey.
  • Carving Out a Middle Ground: The Case of Hawai’i—Jeffrey Moniz and Paul Spickard.
  • New Racial Identities, Old Arguments: Continuing Biological Reification—Rainier Spencer.
  • Color Blindness: An Obstacle to Racial Justice?—Charles A. Gallagher.
  • Racism, Whitespace, and the Rise of the Neo-Mulattos—Hayward Derrick Horton.
• MANIPULATING MULTIRACIAL IDENTITIES.
  • Race, Multiraciality, and the Neoconservative Agenda—G. Reginald Daniel and Josef Manuel Castañeda-Liles.
  • White Separatists in the Color-Blind Era: Redefining Multiracial and White Identities—Abby L. Ferber.
  • Defining Racism to Achieve Goals: The Multiracial and Black Reparations Movements—Johanna E. Foster.
  • Selling Mixedness: Marketing with Multiracial Identities—Kimberly McClain DaCosta.
• SOCIALIZATION IN MULTIRACIAL FAMILIES.
  • It All Starts at Home: Racial Socialization in Multiracial Families—Kerry Ann Rockquemore,
    Tracey Laszloffy, and Julia Noveske.
  • Racial Logics and (Trans)Racial Identities: A View from Britain—France Winddance Twine.
  • Black and White: Family Opposition to Becoming Multiracial—Erica Chito Childs.
• DILEMMAS OF MULTIRACIAL IDENTITY.
  • Negotiating Racial Identity in Social Interactions—R. L’Heureux Lewis and Kanika Bell.
  • Black/White Friendships in a Color-Blind Society—Kathleen Korgen and Eileen O’Brien.
  • Black and Latino: Dominican Americans Negotiate Racial Worlds—Benjamin Bailey.
  • Finding a Home: Housing the Color Line—Heather Dalmage.
  • Confronting Racism in the Therapist’s Office—Kwame Owusu-Bempah.
  • Culture and Identity in Mixed-Race Women’s Lives—Debbie Storrs.