Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

Because the “presumption of freedom [arose] from color [white]” and the “black color of the race [raised] the presumption of slavery,” whiteness became a shield from slavery, a highly volatile and unstable form of property. In the form adopted in the United States, slavery made human beings market-alienable and in so doing, subjected human life and personhood—that which is most valuable—to the ultimate devaluation. Because whites could not be enslaved or held as slaves, the racial line between white and Black was extremely critical; it became a line of protection and demarcation from the potential threat of commodification, and it determined the allocation of the benefits and burdens of this form of property. White identity and whiteness were sources of privilege and protection; their absence meant being the object of property.

Slavery as a system of property facilitated the merger of white identity and property. Because the system of slavery was contingent on and conflated with racial identity, it became crucial to be “white,” to be identified as white, to have the property of being white. Whiteness was the characteristic, the attribute, the property of free human beings.

Cheryl I. Harris, “Whiteness as Property,” Harvard Law Review, (Volume 106, Number 8, June 1993). 1720-1721.

Lionel Richie’s Daughter Sofia Says People Say Racist Stuff Around Her Not Knowing She’s Black

Posted in Articles, Arts, Media Archive, United States on 2016-12-07 01:46Z by Steven

Lionel Richie’s Daughter Sofia Says People Say Racist Stuff Around Her Not Knowing She’s Black

The Root
2016-12-06

Yesha Callahan, Senior Editor

Sofia Richie during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 11, 2016
Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images

The model spoke about the racism she’s subjected to because people don’t see her as a black woman.

Lionel Richie’s daughter Sofia has made a name for herself in the fashion industry, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t subjected to everyday racism. Especially when people forget that she’s actually black.

“I’m very light, so some people don’t really know that I’m black,” Sofia Richie, 18, said in an interview with Complex. “I’ve been in situations where people will say something kind of racist, and I’ll step in and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, well, you’re light.’”

And it’s those statements that might cause her to go off…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: Sofia Richie, The Root, Yesha Callahan

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Mixed Race Studies

Lionel Richie’s Daughter Sofia Says People Say Racist Stuff Around Her Not Knowing She’s Black

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