Abstract
In the 1990s the academy witnessed a strong interest in ‘identity politics’, particularly in the US, UK and broader Western context.1 This chapter will consider the term ‘multiracial identity’. It is a phrase which is becoming rather popular in the US largely through the activities and scholarship of a multiracial pressure group.2 Defining the term ‘multiracial identity’ involves examining two concepts in one phrase. As we have a working definition for ‘multiracial’ (see the Glossary), we can focus more here on comprehending the concept of ‘identity’ per se; recognising, however, that even though it is a slippery entity to define, it is still necessary to have an understanding of what it actually refers to. This is primarily for the purpose of gaining greater clarity in relation to any discussion involving ‘racial mixing’. After establishing a sociological definition for ‘identity’ we can then consider the theoretical and historical dimension of mixed racial identity discourse, specifically within a US and UK frame of reference.
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Notes
See for example M. Castells, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. II: The Power of Identity (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1997);
J. Rutherford (ed.), Identity: Community, Culture, Difference (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990)
J. Donald and A. Rattansi (eds), Culture & Difference (London: Open University and Sage, 1992).
C. W. Mills, The Sociological Imagination (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 6.
There is a fundamental agreement among the world’s major scholars that ‘race’ is essentially a social construct and has no scientific validity. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) produced a series of statements on ‘race’ confirming this point. See A. Montagu, Statement on Race: An Annotated Elaboration and Exposition of the Four Statements on Race Issued by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 3rd Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972).
In this regard, S. Small, The Black Experience in the United States and England in the 1980s (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 209, writes: ‘There are no “races” so there can be no “race relations”. When we analyse relations between Blacks and whites we are studying social relations which have been imbued with “racial” meaning.’ See also
R. Miles, Racism (London and New York: Routledge, 1989).
See S. Hall, ‘Race, Articulation and Societies Structured in Dominance’, in UNESCO, Sociological Theories: Race and Colonialism (Paris: UNESCO, 1980).
B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983).
S. Hall, ‘New Ethnicities’, in J. Donald and A. Rattansi (eds), ’Race’, Culture Sr Difference (London: Open University and Sage, 1992), pp. 252–9.
For example, it is difficult to find any of the authors, of whom some are regarded as the ‘best’ contemporary thinkers in terms of Black culture, such as Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy, in the following text that are comfortable with the term ’Black’. Yet paradoxically when it comes to selling their collective ideas they appear to have no problem giving the title a distinctly ’Black Identity’. See G. Dent (ed.), Black Popular Culture (Seattle: Bay Press, 1992).
J. M. Spencer, The New Colored People: The Mixed-Race Movement in America (New York and London: New York University Press, 1997), p. 1.
Considering the fact that there is a 25-author contribution in The Multiracial Experience text edited by M. P. P. Root, there is not a balance of views. Indeed the text overtly contends for a ‘new people’ under the term ’multiracial’. In this sense, the historical African American experience of the ’one drop rule’ is given cursory attention by only a few of the authors. Even though it has been the determinant factor in what it is to be ’Black in America’; see F. J. Davis, Who Is Black? One Nation’s Definition (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991).
M. K. Asante, ‘Racing to Leave the Race: Black Postmodernists Off-Track’, The Black Scholar 23 (3 and 4; Spring/Fall 1993), pp. 50–1.
See B. Tizard and A. Phoenix, Black, White or Mixed Race?: Race and Racism in the Lives of Young People of Mixed Parentage (London: Routledge, 1993).
See R. E. Park, ‘Human Migration and the Marginal Man’, The American Journal of Sociology, 33 (6) (May 1928), pp. 881–93;
R. E. Park, ‘Mentality of Racial Hybrids’, The American Journal of Sociology, 36 (Jan. 1931), pp. 534–51.
C. Dover, Half-Caste (London: Secker & Warburg, 1937), p. 13.
E. V. Stonequist, Marginal Man: A Study of Personality and Culture Conflict (New York: Russell & Russell, 1961; first published in 1937).
See H. F. Dickie-Clark, ‘The Marginal Situation: A Contribution to Marginality Theory’, Social Forces, 44 (1965), pp. 363–70.
For examples of labelling theory, see H. S. Becker, Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (New York: The Free Press, 1973);
E. Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963);
I. Katz, Stigma: A Social Psychological Analysis (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1981).
J. E. Helms (ed.), Black and White Racial Identity: Theory, Research and Practice (London: Praeger, 1993), p. 3.
See M. E. Fletcher, Report on An Investigation into the Colour Problem in Liverpool and other Ports (Liverpool, UK: Association for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children, 1930).
L. Wirth and H. Goldhamer, ‘The Hybrid and the Problem of Miscegenation’, in O. Klineberg (ed.), Characteristics of the American Negro (New York: Harper & Row, 1944), part V;
G. Myrdal, An American Dilemma, vols. I and II (New York: Harper & Row, 1944).
See for example K. Russell, M. Wilson and R. Hall, The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color Among African Americans (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992), who analyse the issue of ‘skin tone’ within the African American experience and argue that it has and still does have great significance within the community.
Professor William Strickland, cited by M. K. Frisby, ‘Black, White or Other’, in Emerge (Dec./Jan., 1996), pp. 48–52.
See W. D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812 (Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1969), p. 163.
For example, see A. Wilson, Mixed Race Children: A Study of Identity (London: Allen & Unwin, 1987), pp. 38–63.
Wilson is a UK scholar and her discussion in chapter 3 relates to the ‘Doll Studies’ conducted by the US scholars K. B. Clark and M. K. Clark, ’The Development of Consciousness of Self and the Emergence of Racial Identification in Negro Pre-School Children’, in Journal of Social Psychology, SSPSI Bulletin 10 (1939), pp. 591–9;
K. B. Clark and M. K. Clark, ‘Racial Identification and Preference in Negro Children’, in T. Newcomb and E. Hartley (eds), Readings in Social Psychology (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1947), pp. 169–78.
R. Moore, Ethnic Statistics and the 1991 Census - the Black Population of Inner Liverpool (London: Runneymede, 1994), p. 9.
See Y. Alibhai-Brown and A. Montague, The Colour of Love: Mixed Race Relationships (London: Virago, 1992);
C. Bagley, ‘Interracial Marriage in Britain: Some Statistics’, in New Community 1 (4) (1972), pp. 318–26;
S. Benson, Ambiguous Ethnicity: Interracial Families in London (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981);
B. Day, Sexual Life Between Blacks and Whites (London: Collins, 1974).
Table adapted from Commission for Racial Equality’s, Roots for the Future: Ethnic Diversity in the Making of Britain (London: CRE, 1996), p. 38.
See R. Miles and A. Phizacklea, White Man’s Country: Racism in British Politics (London: Pluto, 1984).
See for example A. Gill, Ruling Passions: Sex, Race and Empire (London: BBC Books, 1995);
R. May and R. Cohen, ‘Interaction Between Race and Colonialism: A Case Study of the Race Riots of 1919 Liverpool’, in Race and Class 16 (2) (1974), pp. 111–26;
P. B. Rich, Race and Empire in British Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986);
R. J. C. Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race (London: Routledge, 1995).
See L. Poliakov, The Aryan Myth (London: Chatto, 1974).
J. Small, ‘Transracial Placements: Conflicts and Contradictions’, in S. Ahmed, J. Cheetham and J. Small (eds), Social Work with Black Children and their Families (London: Batsford, 1986), pp. 81–99.
N. Banks, ‘Mixed-Up Kid’, in Social Work Today (10 Sept. 1992), pp. 12–13.
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© 2000 Mark Christian
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Christian, M. (2000). Theorising Multiracial Identity. In: Multiracial Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230501744_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230501744_1
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