DOCSLIB.ORG

“Where Are You From?” Hypodescent Is the Act Of

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
“Where Are You From?” Hypodescent Is the Act Of “Where Are You From?” Hypodescent is the act of anyone of mixed race being classified as their socially inferior parentage. Hypodescent was the basis for the “one-drop rule”, in which any individual with any traceable black ancestry was classified as black. The main difference between hypodescent and the one-drop rule is that hypodescent is an ideology and was not legally enforced unlike the one-drop rule. The basis of hypodescent dates back to the 17th century. During the 17th century, African American slaves began to replace European indentured servants. The African American slave population grew in order to meet labor needs, a divide grew between enslaved African Americans and free European Americans. This distinction between enslaved African Americans and free European American was merely black individuals and white individuals (Daniel 2002, 38). This was the first act instilling a binary classification between white and black. The beginning of biracial and multiracial individuals began with relationships between the white slave owners and the enslaved individuals. In some cases these relationships were consensual but many were violent cases of rape. The inhumane act of slavery was the foundation of racial inferiority among African Americans. In order to justify slavery and racial segregation, scientific racism and eugenics were used to rationalize and reproduce racial inequality. These ideas became popular throughout the 19th century and people began to strongly support and believe the inferiority of African Americans. In 1865, Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation by making it legal. They were enacted to preserve white supremacy and racial inferiority of African Americans. In the early 20th century, this ultimately led to the enforcement by law of the one-drop rule which was officially adopted throughout the United States, particularly in the South. The one-drop law solidified race as binary, black and white, as well as asserted white superiority. It left no room for the expression or sheer existence of biracial and multiracial individuals. Hypodescent and the monoracial imperative cemented the idea of race as binary. This set social classifications and hierarchical formations between blacks and whites. Blacks unanimously fell into an inferior racial position socially, culturally and economically within the United States. The racial formation in the United States has therefore been shaped by this “black-white paradigm” in which race falls into a singular category (Daniel 2002, xi). This further erases the idea of someone being biracial or multiracial. Because of this, multiracial or biracial individuals have been forced into a binary racial category chosen by society. This has led to the abandonment of their multiracial and biracial identities in order to fit into a social category. Hypodescent and the one-drop rule established a clear divide amongst black and white people. Due to the one-drop rule, multiracial people internalized the law and began to identify as black; even if they had not identified as black, they would have been assigned to the black race by society. As the idea of race as binary became more popular, people treated multiracial individuals, who were identified as black in an awful and inhumane way. Discrimination and prejudice began to grow in the United States particularly in the South. In addition, Jim Crow laws which were passed in 1865 legally enforced segregation. Due to the growing restrictions and racism, multiracial people began resisting hypodescent in the forms of passing, blue vein societies and forming triracial isolates. Passing was a form of integration in which a multicultural individual, had an American European phenotype and cultural orientation and could therefore pass as “white” in order to enjoy the privileges that came with being a white person such as power, prestige and wealth. (Daniel 2002, 50) The “Great Age” of passing occurred between 1880-1925, in response to the enforcement of Jim Crow laws. One form of passing is discontinuous passing. Discontinuous passing is a nonpermanent type of passing when a multiracial person temporarily passes as a white person for a short period of time. Discontinuous passing is when a black person holds a white job during the day but comes home to their black community (Daniel 2002, 50). Another form of passing was continuous passing in which a multiracial person permanently crosses over to identifying as white. Individuals who follow this form of passing completely abandon their black ancestry in order to enjoy the privileges of a white person. Due to hypodescent, multiracial people were often caught between being considered part of the black or white race. Phenotypically, they were often not light-skinned enough to fully pass as European American yet they were not dark-skinned enough to be accepted into the black community. This led to a lost sense of identity and a feeling of not belonging that plagued many multiracial individuals. If a multiracial person could pass as white, they often took advantage of this opportunity in order to feel a sense of belonging to a community. Passing as white was a form of integrationism which provided multiracial people a sense of belonging. Furthermore, passing resisted the one-drop rule because it allowed multiracial people to be fluid with their racial identity. They could pass as white even though due to the one-drop rule they were identified as black. Integrating into the white society granted multiracial people the privileges that came with being a white person such as wealth, power and prestige. This is a form of egalitarian integrationist because multiracial individuals were able to integrate into white society and enjoy equal opportunities. Even though multiracial people were forced to abandon their black ancestry in order to pass as white, they were fortunate enough to escape being subjected to racism. Leaving behind a part of your identity is challenging and depressing for many; passing as white highlighted the desperateness and willingness of multiracial individuals to escape their black-identified lives in order to increase their opportunities and enjoy a better life. Along with passing as a form of hypodescent resistance, blue-vein societies arose in the 19th century. Blue vein societies were exclusive social groups of light skinned African American’s who were unable to fully pass as white but were lighter in skin color than other dark skinned African American descents. This is another circumstance in which those of multiracial descent were stuck between two communities without a sense of belonging, therefore they formed their own separate blue-vein societies. In order to be accepted into the community, one had to be light skinned enough to see their veins. They were convinced they suffered from racial stereotypes of black masses who “possessed little knowledge of or appreciation for the ‘laws governing society’” and therefore held them separate from blacks and considered themselves “multiracial elites” (Daniel 2002, 55). The meaning behind a multiracial elite was that they deemed themselves dominant and more deserving than other, particularly darker skinned, multiracial individuals. This is a form of inegalitarian pluralism, characterized by promoting the inequality between people of multiple races. Inegalitarian pluralism is further illustrated here by using the term “interracial colorism”. Colorism is an ideology that people with lighter skin are superior, more beautiful and therefore more deserving within society (Golash-Boza 2019). Blue vein societies consisting of multiracial elites is a clear example of interracial colorism. The members of this society believed they were better than other African American descents simply because of their lighter skin and more “typical” European American looks such as straight hair and sharp features. Because of this, multiracial elites discriminated against darker multiracial individuals. In addition to passing and blue vein societies, triracial isolates exemplified a resistance towards the rule of hypodescent. Triracial isolates are communities throughout the United States “of varying combinations and degrees of Europeans American, Native American and African American descent” (Daniel 2002, 68). These communities are pluralistic, containing individuals with a mix of backgrounds. They are united by their similar living conditions on the outskirts of cities in hilly, swampy or muddy areas (Daniel 2002, 68). Triracial isolate communities are off the grid in their own isolated enclaves. By forming these communities, they are challenging the binary racial project created by hypodescent. They refuse to conform to a white or black race and therefore have created their own communities around the United States for multiracial people. This was appealing for many multiracial people because they had the ability to fit into a community without conforming to a white or black race. It is evident that multiracial individuals faced several forms of oppression due to hypodescent and its monoracial imperative. Passing, blue-vein societies and triracial isolates exemplify these struggles of both racial oppression and a sense of isolation that many multiracial people experienced. Because of unequal and discriminatory experiences, multiracial individuals formed organizations such as blue vein societies and triracial isolates as well as followed a form of passing in order to resist the one-drop rule and find a sense of belonging. These practices were known as collective
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Historical Origins of the One-Drop Racial Rule in the United States
    Historical Origins of the One-Drop Racial Rule in the United States Winthrop D. Jordan1 Edited by Paul Spickard2 Editor’s Note Winthrop Jordan was one of the most honored US historians of the second half of the twentieth century. His subjects were race, gender, sex, slavery, and religion, and he wrote almost exclusively about the early centuries of American history. One of his first published articles, “American Chiaroscuro: The Status and Definition of Mulattoes in the British Colonies” (1962), may be considered an intellectual forerunner of multiracial studies, as it described the high degree of social and sexual mixing that occurred in the early centuries between Africans and Europeans in what later became the United States, and hinted at the subtle racial positionings of mixed people in those years.3 Jordan’s first book, White over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812, was published in 1968 at the height of the Civil Rights Movement era. The product of years of painstaking archival research, attentive to the nuances of the thousands of documents that are its sources, and written in sparkling prose, White over Black showed as no previous book had done the subtle psycho-social origins of the American racial caste system.4 It won the National Book Award, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, the Bancroft Prize, the Parkman Prize, and other honors. It has never been out of print since, and it remains a staple of the graduate school curriculum for American historians and scholars of ethnic studies. In 2005, the eminent public intellectual Gerald Early, at the request of the African American magazine American Legacy, listed what he believed to be the ten most influential books on African American history.
    [Show full text]
  • Than Segregation, Racial Identity: the Neglected Question in Plessy V
    Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice Volume 10 | Issue 1 Article 3 Spring 4-1-2004 MORE THAN SEGREGATION, RACIAL IDENTITY: THE NEGLECTED QUESTION IN PLESSY V. FERGUSON Thomas J. Davis Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/crsj Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, and the Legal History Commons Recommended Citation Thomas J. Davis, MORE THAN SEGREGATION, RACIAL IDENTITY: THE NEGLECTED QUESTION IN PLESSY V. FERGUSON, 10 Wash. & Lee Race & Ethnic Anc. L. J. 1 (2004). Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/crsj/vol10/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice at Washington & Lee University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice by an authorized editor of Washington & Lee University School of Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MORE THAN SEGREGATION, RACIAL IDENTITY: THE NEGLECTED QUESTION IN PLESSY V. FERGUSON Thomas J. Davis* I. INTRODUCTION The U.S. Supreme Court's 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson' has long stood as an ignominious marker in U.S. law, symbolizing the nation's highest legal sanction for the physical separation by race of persons in the United States. In ruling against thirty-four-year-old New Orleans shoemaker Homer Adolph Plessy's challenge to Louisiana's Separate Railway Act of 1890,2 the Court majority declared that we think the enforced separation of the races, as applied to the internal commerce of the state, neither abridges the privileges or immunities of the colored man, deprives him of his property without due process of law, nor denies him the equal protection of the laws, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.3 One commentator on the Court's treatment of African-American civil rights cast the Plessy decision as "the climactic Supreme Court pronouncement on segregated institutions."4 Historian C.
    [Show full text]
  • (In)Determinable: Race in Brazil and the United States
    Michigan Journal of Race and Law Volume 14 2009 Determining the (In)Determinable: Race in Brazil and the United States D. Wendy Greene Cumberland School fo Law at Samford University Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl Part of the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons, Education Law Commons, Law and Race Commons, and the Law and Society Commons Recommended Citation D. W. Greene, Determining the (In)Determinable: Race in Brazil and the United States, 14 MICH. J. RACE & L. 143 (2009). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl/vol14/iss2/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Journal of Race and Law by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DETERMINING THE (IN)DETERMINABLE: RACE IN BRAZIL AND THE UNITED STATES D. Wendy Greene* In recent years, the Brazilian states of Rio de Janeiro, So Paulo, and Mato Grasso du Sol have implemented race-conscious affirmative action programs in higher education. These states established admissions quotas in public universities '' for Afro-Brazilians or afrodescendentes. As a result, determining who is "Black has become a complex yet important undertaking in Brazil. Scholars and the general public alike have claimed that the determination of Blackness in Brazil is different than in the United States; determining Blackness in the United States is allegedly a simpler task than in Brazil. In Brazil it is widely acknowledged that most Brazilians are descendants of Aficans in light of the pervasive miscegenation that occurred during and after the Portuguese and Brazilian enslavement of * Assistant Professor of Law, Cumberland School of Law at Samford University.
    [Show full text]
  • Check One Box: Reconsidering Directive No. 15 and the Classification of Mixed-Race People
    Check One Box: Reconsidering Directive No. 15 and the Classification of Mixed-Race People Kenneth E. Paysont INTRODUCTION "What are you?" As the child of a Japanese mother and a White father, I have often been asked this question.' While I am also male, heterosexual, law student, spouse, sibling, and child, this query is usually directed at my racial identity. As a mixed-race person, I am part of an ill-defined, amorphous group of persons who are increasingly becoming the subject of private and public scrutiny. As one commen- tator quipped, one "cannot turn on 'Oprah' without seeing a segment on multiraciality . ."' The simple question "What are you?" illus- trates the fundamental role race plays in defining our relationships with others. When faced with ambiguous morphology, we seek clarification of another's racial identity so that we may begin defining our Copyright © 1996 California Law Review, Inc. t Law clerk to the Honorable Barbara Durham, Chief Justice, Washington Supreme Court. J.D. 1996, Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley. I would like to thank Professor Rachel Moran for her patience, insight, and encouragement. I would also like to thank Professors Robert Chang, Jewelle Taylor Gibbs, Angela Harris, and Marina Hsieh for their thoughtful feedback. Lastly, I would like to thank the editors and staff of the CaliforniaLaw Review for all their hard work. This Comment is dedicated to my wife, Monica, for her unfailing love and support. 1. I evidently appear racially ambiguous, having at various times been identified by others as Asian, Latino, American Indian or African-American.
    [Show full text]
  • Carnival, Convents, and the Cult of St. Rocque: Cultural Subterfuge in the Work of Alice Dunbar-Nelson
    Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Theses Department of English Summer 8-9-2012 Carnival, Convents, and the Cult of St. Rocque: Cultural Subterfuge in the Work of Alice Dunbar-Nelson Sibongile B. Lynch Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_theses Recommended Citation Lynch, Sibongile B., "Carnival, Convents, and the Cult of St. Rocque: Cultural Subterfuge in the Work of Alice Dunbar-Nelson." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2012. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_theses/136 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CARNIVAL, CONVENTS, AND THE CULT OF ST. ROCQUE: CULTURAL SUBTERFUGE IN THE WORK OF ALICE DUNBAR-NELSON by SIBONGILE B. N. LYNCH Under the Direction of Elizabeth J. West ABSTRACT In the work of Alice Dunbar-Nelson the city and culture of 19th century New Orleans fig- ures prominently, and is a major character affecting the lives of her protagonists. While race, class, and gender are among the focuses of many scholars the eccentricity and cultural history of the most exotic American city, and its impact on Dunbar-Nelson’s writing is unmistakable. This essay will discuss how the diverse cultural environment of New Orleans in the 19th century allowed Alice Dunbar Nelson to create narratives which allowed her short stories to speak to the shifting identities of women and the social uncertainty of African Americans in the Jim Crow south.
    [Show full text]
  • August 25, 2021 NEW YORK FORWARD/REOPENING
    September 24, 2021 NEW YORK FORWARD/REOPENING GUIDANCE & INFORMATIONi FEDERAL UPDATES: • On August 3, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an extension of the nationwide residential eviction pause in areas experiencing substantial and high levels of community transmission levels of SARS-CoV-2, which is aligned with the mask order. The moratorium order, that expires on October 3, 2021, allows additional time for rent relief to reach renters and to further increase vaccination rates. See: Press Release ; Signed Order • On July 27, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its guidance for mask wearing in public indoor settings for fully vaccinated people in areas where coronavirus transmission is high, in response to the spread of the Delta Variant. The CDC also included a recommendation for fully vaccinated people who have a known exposure to someone with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 to be tested 3-5 days after exposure, and to wear a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days or until they receive a negative test result. Further, the CDC recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to schools, regardless of vaccination status See: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019- ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated-guidance.html • The CDC on Thursday, June 24, 2021 announced a one-month extension to its nationwide pause on evictions that was executed in response to the pandemic. The moratorium that was scheduled to expire on June 30, 2021 is now extended through July 31, 2021 and this is intended to be the final extension of the moratorium.
    [Show full text]
  • Sociology of Multiracial Identity in the Late 1980S and Early 1990S: the Failure of a Perspective1
    Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies Copyright 2021 2021, Vol. 8, No. 2, 106-125 ISSN: 2149-1291 http://dx.doi.org/10.29333/ejecs/643 Sociology of Multiracial Identity in the Late 1980s and Early 1990s: The Failure of a Perspective1 G. Reginald Daniel University of California, Santa Barbara2 Abstract: Sociologists largely failed to comprehend the emergence of multiracial identities in the United States during the late 1980s and early 1990s. This was due, in part, to hypodescent and the monoracial imperative. These social devices, respectively, categorize offspring of interracial unions between Whites and people of color based exclusively on the background of color, and necessitate single-racial identification. This has prohibited the articulation and recognition of multiracial identities. Hypodescent and the monoracial imperative are so normative that they have been taken for granted by sociologists across the monoracial spectrum, much as the larger society. Sociology’s espoused objectivity blinded sociologists to the standpoint of their own monoracial subjectivity. They provided little critical examination of hypodescent and the monoracial imperative in terms of their impact on multiracial identity formations. Some sociologists challenged theories of marginality, which stressed the psychological dysfunction of multiracials. Yet multiracial identities were considered symptomatic of mainly isolated psychological concerns with personal identity. Sociologists were absent from analyses of collective identity and agency speaking to mixed-race concerns. Consequently, they remained on the periphery of social scientific theorizing of multiracial identities in terms of their wider-ranging implications. Keywords: group formation, hypodescent, mixed race, multiracial, sociological theories of race, the one-drop rule. Introduction: The Failure in Historical Perspective McKee (1993), in Sociology and the Race Problem: The Failure of a Perspective, argued most U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Race As a Legal Concept
    University of Colorado Law School Colorado Law Scholarly Commons Articles Colorado Law Faculty Scholarship 2012 Race as a Legal Concept Justin Desautels-Stein University of Colorado Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/articles Part of the Conflict of Laws Commons, Jurisprudence Commons, Law and Race Commons, and the Legal History Commons Citation Information Justin Desautels-Stein, Race as a Legal Concept, 2 COLUM. J. RACE & L. 1 (2012), available at https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/articles/137. Copyright Statement Copyright protected. Use of materials from this collection beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. Permission to publish or reproduce is required. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Colorado Law Faculty Scholarship at Colorado Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of Colorado Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. +(,121/,1( Citation: 2 Colum. J. Race & L. 1 2012 Provided by: William A. Wise Law Library Content downloaded/printed from HeinOnline Tue Feb 28 10:02:56 2017 -- Your use of this HeinOnline PDF indicates your acceptance of HeinOnline's Terms and Conditions of the license agreement available at http://heinonline.org/HOL/License -- The search text of this PDF is generated from uncorrected OCR text. -- To obtain permission to use this article beyond the scope of your HeinOnline license, please use: Copyright Information 2012 COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF RACE AND LAW RACE AS A LEGAL CONCEPT JUSTIN DESAUTELS-STEIN* Race is a /el cocpangie a/Il corncepts, it is a matrix of rules.
    [Show full text]
  • Identity Issues: the Passing Mulatto and the Politics of Representations
    American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) ISSN (Print) 2313-4410, ISSN (Online) 2313-4402 © Global Society of Scientific Research and Researchers http://asrjetsjournal.org/ Identity Issues: The Passing Mulatto and the Politics of Representations Dr. Hayder Naji Shanbooj Alolaiwi* Faculty of Letters, Department of Anglo-American and German Studies University of Craiova Craiova, Romania Email: [email protected] Abstract The transformation of the American nation into a multicultural society could result in a nation that voluntarily and openly accepts the benefits of contributing traditions, values, philosophies and behaviors. This trend, though, is struggling against a social structure that has been perceived to be grounded upon a dominant culture and value system. According to John A. Garcia, multiculturalism and difference are challenging cultural and ideological supremacy upsetting the sense of naturalness and neutrality that infused most peoples’ sense of modern society. The U.S. American ethos was characterized by individualism, egalitarianism, equality of opportunity and emphasis on Western cultures, among other things. All these characteristics have historically been turned into the perfect ingredients of a pervasive American tradition that serves as a cultural core that all members of society learnt to share and internalize ensuring societal stability and gradual change. Keywords: Negro; Passing; Mullatto; African American. 1. Introduction The background – historical and social The myth of the American melting pot has been scrutinized and dismantled as group social identities do persist and the actions toward them help to emphasize the differences. The first serious opponent of America’s great melting pot was Horace Kallen, an early twentieth-century multiculturalist.
    [Show full text]
  • RACE, COLOR, COMMUNITY by Judy Scales-Trent
    Review Essay Interrogating Identity NOTES OF A WHITE BLACK WOMAN: RACE, COLOR, COMMUNITY By Judy Scales-Trent. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State Uni- versity Press, 1995. Pp. 194. $19.50. Mary Coombst I. INTRODUCTION A few years ago, I would have described myself as a white Jewish heterosexual female.' Today, I'm considerably less sure, because both my self-understanding and my sense of the meaning and significance of those very categories has changed. Judy Scales-Trent's book, Notes of a White Black Woman,2 provides a marvelous vehicle for exploring the process of understanding and defining individual and collective identities. As the title indicates, Professor Scales-Trent herself embodies the complex, sometimes painful, and often revealing identity of a "white black woman." 3 Through Copyright © 1996, BERKELEY WoMEN's LAW JouRNAL and the AFRICAN-AMERICAN LAW & POL- iCY REPORT. For permission to reprint for classroom or anthology use, contact the AFIwcAN- AMERacAN LAW & POLICY REPORT. For all other permission, including electronic use, contact the BERKELEY WoMEN's LAW JOURNAL. t Professor, University of Miami School of Law. Many thanks to Clark Freshman, Sharon Keller, and Marnie Mahoney for their comments and support, and to my research assistant, Anna Selden, and our reference librarian, Anne Klinefelter, for their superb skills at finding sources in a timely fashion and with minimal cues. I If I had considered it,I also would have described myself as not disabled. However, the unmarked nature of the category "able-bodied" is so powerful that I probably would not have included that fact, even when thinking about categories of identity.
    [Show full text]
  • The Experiences of Racially Ambiguous People of Color
    Montclair State University Montclair State University Digital Commons Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects 5-2019 The Lines Between the Checkboxes : The Experiences of Racially Ambiguous People of Color Tyce Nadrich Montclair State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/etd Part of the Counseling Commons Recommended Citation Nadrich, Tyce, "The Lines Between the Checkboxes : The Experiences of Racially Ambiguous People of Color" (2019). Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects. 306. https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/etd/306 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by Montclair State University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects by an authorized administrator of Montclair State University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE LINES BETWEEN THE CHECKBOXES: THE EXPERIENCES OF RACIALLY AMBIGUOUS PEOPLE OF COLOR A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of Montclair State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements or the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by TYCE NADRICH Montclair State University Upper Montclair, NJ May 2019 Dissertation Chair: Dr. Muninder K. Ahluwalia Copyright © 2019 by Tyce Nadrich. All rights reserved. ABSTRACT THE LINES BETWEEN THE CHECKBOXES: THE EXPERIENCES OF RACIALLY AMBIGUOUS PEOPLE OF COLOR By Tyce Nadrich The influences of race on people’s lived experiences are vast and enumerable. Despite advancements in multicultural counseling literature, the experiences of racially ambiguous people of color, or persons who do not align with preexisting ideas about race (Brown & Brown, 2004; James &Tucker, 2003; Young, Sanchez, & Wilton, 2013), are relatively unknown. Further, the racially ambiguous experience is often conflated with persons of mixed-race heritage (Young, Sanchez, & Wilton, 2013).
    [Show full text]
  • The Devil and the One Drop Rule: Racial Categories, African Americans, and the U.S
    The Devil and the One Drop Rule: Racial Categories, African Americans, and the U.S. Census Author(s): Christine B. Hickman Source: Michigan Law Review, Vol. 95, No. 5 (Mar., 1997), pp. 1161-1265 Published by: The Michigan Law Review Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1290008 Accessed: 11-01-2017 22:19 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms The Michigan Law Review Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Michigan Law Review This content downloaded from 141.211.10.44 on Wed, 11 Jan 2017 22:19:05 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE DEVIL AND THE ONE DROP RULE: RACIAL CATEGORIES, AFRICAN AMERICANS, AND THE U.S. CENSUS Christine B. Hickman* TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ............................................... 1163 I. Treatment of Mixed-Race People: The Early Legal Record . ............................. ........... 1171 A. The First African Americans and the First Race Mixing ......... ..................... 1172 B. Mulattoes: Black by Law ...................... 1174 C. A Study in Contrasts: Exclusion of Mulattoes from De Crevecoeur's "New Race of Men" ... 1180 D. The Census and the Mulatto Category, 1850- 1910 .... ....................... ..... .. .. 1182 II. Proposals for a Multiracial Category: Critiquing the Discourse .....................................
    [Show full text]