How Understanding Interracial Families Contributes to Our Understanding of Race and Family

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

Biologically speaking, there’s no such thing as race. As hard as they’ve tried, scientists have never been able to define it. That’s because race is a human creation, not a fact of nature. Like money, it only exists because people accept it as “real.” Races exist because humans invented them.

Why would people invent race? Race was created in America in the late 1600s in order to preserve the land and power of the wealthy. Rich planters in Virginia feared what might happen if indigenous tribes, slaves, and indentured servants united and overthrew them. So, they cut a deal with the poor English colonists. The planters gave the English poor certain rights and privileges denied to all persons of African and Native American descent: the right to never be enslaved, to free speech and assembly, to move about without a pass, to marry without upper-class permission, to change jobs, to acquire property, and to bear arms. In exchange, the English poor agreed to respect the property of the rich, help them seize indigenous lands, and enforce slavery.

This cross-class alliance between the rich and the English poor came to be known as the “white race.” By accepting preferential treatment in an economic system that exploited their labor, too, the white working class tied their wagon to the elite rather than the rest of humanity. This devil’s bargain has undermined freedom and democracy in the U.S. ever since.

Joel Olson, “Whiteness and the 99%,” Bring the Ruckus. (October 20, 2011). http://www.bringtheruckus.org/?q=node%2F146.

How Understanding Interracial Families Contributes to Our Understanding of Race and Family

How Understanding Interracial Families Contributes to Our Understanding of Race and Family

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association
Montreal Convention Center
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
2006-08-11

22 pages

Jessica Mills

In family sociology, racial differences have long been viewed as a defining feature of family life. Yet, the treatment of the family/race relationship in mainstream sociology has had major limitations. Many family scholars today are challenging the conventional wisdom about race and the family. Their approaches to the matter of racial differences in family life have begun to refocus the family field. This paper will provide a brief retrospective and prospective view of contemporary thought, analysis, and supporting research in the family field. It will also synthesize current sociological work on interracial families and assess its usefulness for advancing both family studies and the field of race.

Read the entire paper here.

Tags: Jessica Mills

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Mixed Race Studies

How Understanding Interracial Families Contributes to Our Understanding of Race and Family

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