Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T22:41:17.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Fluid Symbol of Mixed Race

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Naomi Zack
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Philosophers have little to lose in making practical proposals. If the proposals are enacted, the power of ideas to change the world is affirmed. If the proposals are rejected, there is new material for theoretical reflection. During the 1990s, I believed that broad public recognition of mixed race, particularly black and white mixed race, would contribute to an undoing of rigid and racist, socially constructed racial categories. I argued for such recognition in my first book, Race and Mixed Race (Zack 1993), a follow-through anthology, American Mixed Race (Zack 1995), and numerous articles, especially the essay, “Mixed Black and White Race and Public Policy,” which appeared first in Hypatia in 1995.1 I also delivered scores of public and academic lectures and presentations on this subject, all of which expressed the following in varied forms and formats: Race is an idea that lacks the biological foundation it is commonly assumed to have. There is need for broad education about this absence of foundation; mixed-race identities should be recognized, especially black–white identities.

Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Hypatia , Volume 25 , Issue 4: Special Issue: Feminist Legacies/Feminist Futures: The 25th Anniversary Issue , Summer 2010 , pp. 875 - 890
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Angier, Natalie. 2000. Do races differ? Not really, genes show. New York Times, August 22: F1.Google Scholar
Appiah, K. Anthony. 1993. In my father's house. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barbujani, Guido, Magagni, Arianna, Minch, Eric, and Cavalli‐Sforza, L. Luca. 1997. An apportionment of human DNA diversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 94 (9): 4516–19.10.1073/pnas.94.9.4516CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bell, Derrick. 1987. And we are not saved: The elusive quest for racial justice. New York: Basic Books.Google ScholarPubMed
Cavalli‐Sforza, Luigi Luca. 2000. Genes, peoples and languages, Trans. Mark Seielstad. New York: Northpoint Press.Google Scholar
Cavalli‐Sforza, Luigi Luca, Menozza, Paolo, and Piazza, Alberto. 1994. The History and geography of human genes. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Corcos, Alain. 1997. The myth of human races. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé, Gotanda, Neil, Peller, Gary, and Thomas, Kendall, eds. 1995. Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement. New York: New Press.Google Scholar
Davis, Angela. 2008. Marcuse today. First Plenary Panel: Herbert Marcuse on art and praxis. Eighth Biennial Radical Philosophy Association Conference, University of San Francisco. November 6.Google Scholar
Gates, Henry Louis Jr. 2006a. African American lives. PBS documentary. Available athttp://www.pbs.org/aboutpbs/news/20050713_africanamericanlives.html(accessed March 4, 2010).Google Scholar
Gates, Henry Louis Jr. 2006b. Oprah's roots, an African American lives special. PBS documentary. Available athttp://www.pbs.org/previews/oprahs‐roots/(accessed March 4, 2010).Google Scholar
Goldberg, David Theo. 1995. Made in the USA. In American mixed race: The culture of microdiversity, ed. Zack, Naomi. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 237–256.Google Scholar
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1997. Geographical bases of world history. From Lectures on the philosophy of world history. In Race and the enlightenment: A reader, ed. Chukwudi Eze, Emmanuel. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, pp. 109–149.Google Scholar
Hume, David. 1885. Of national characters. In Essays moral, political and literary, Vol. 1. ed. Green, T.H. and Grose, T.H.London: Longmans, Green and Co.Google Scholar
Jablonski, Nina, and Chaplin, George. 2000. The evolution of human skin coloration. Journal of Human Evolution 39 (1): 57–106.10.1006/jhev.2000.0403CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kant, Immanuel. 1950. On the different races of man. In This is race: An anthology selected from the international literature on the races of man, ed. Count, Earl W.New York: Henry Shuman, pp. 16–24.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. 1997. On national characters. In Race and the enlightenment: A reader, ed. ChukwudiEze, Emmanuel Eze, Emmanuel. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, pp. 38–57.Google Scholar
Mayr, Ernst. 1982. The growth of biological thought: Diversity, evolution and inheritance. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Nova. 2004 Dogs: PBS documentary on genetic diversity of canines. Available athttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/dogs/(accessed February 9, 2010).Google Scholar
Obama, Barack. 2004. Dreams from my father: A story of race and inheritance. New York: Three Rivers Press.Google Scholar
Obama, Barack. 2008a. Birth certificate image. Available athttp://msgboard.snopes.com/politics/graphics/birth.jpg(accessed March 4, 2010).Google Scholar
Obama, Barack. 2008b. Official biography. Available athttp://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=O000167(accessed December 2009).Google Scholar
Obama, Barack. 2008c. Presidential victory speech. Available athttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/04/obama‐victory‐speech_n_141194.html(accessed December 2009).Google Scholar
Outlaw, Lucius. 2008. Radical philosophy and social movements: Legacies and prospects. Fourth Plenary Session: Contemporary Radical Movements. Eighth Biennial Radical Philosophy Association Conference, University of San Francisco. November 7.Google Scholar
Reginald, Daniel G. 2002. More than black? Multiracial identity and the new racial order. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Relethford, John H. 1994. The human species: An introduction to biological anthropology. Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfield.Google Scholar
Robins, Ashley H. 1991. Biological perspective on human pigmentation. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511600463CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Root, Maria P.P. 1996. The multiracial experience: Racial borders as the new frontier. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Root, Maria P.P. 1993. Bill of rights for multiracial Americans. Available athttp://www.drmariaroot.com/publications.php(accessed December 2009).Google Scholar
Spencer, Ranier. 1999. Spurious issues: Race and multiracial identity politics in the United States. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Templeton, Alan R. 1998. Human races: A genetic and evolutionary perspective. American Anthropologist 100 (3): 632–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
U.S. Census 2000. Available athttp://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Race‐(United‐States‐Census)(accessed December 2009).Google Scholar
Zack, Naomi. 1993. Race and mixed race. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Zack, Naomi., ed. 1995. American mixed race: The culture of microdiversity. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Zack, Naomi. 1997. Mixed black and white race and public policy. In Feminist ethics and social policy, ed. DiQuinzio, Patrice and Young, Iris Marion. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 173–185.Google Scholar
DiQuinzio, Patrice. 2001. American mixed race: Theoretical and legal issues. Harvard BlackLetter Law Journal 17:33–46.Google Scholar
DiQuinzio, Patrice. 2002. Philosophy of science and race. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
DiQuinzio, Patrice. 2005/2006. Thinking about race. 2nd ed. Belmont, Calif.: Thomson Wadsworth.Google Scholar
DiQuinzio, Patrice. 2007. Ethnicity, race, and the importance of gender. In Race or ethnicity? On black and Latino identity, ed. Gracia, Jorge. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar