Even if hypodescent is no longer enforced, its effects remain. That is, the legacy of the one-drop rule�

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

“Gender is one of the most important predictors of racial identity, with women more likely than men to incorporate multiple races into their self-identification, all else being equal. This finding emerges across black-white, Asian-white, and Latino-white biracials, though the effect is most pronounced among black-white biracials. Biracial men are relatively more inclined to identify with their minority race, which can be attributed in part to the gendered nature of racial prejudice in the U.S. Men of all racial backgrounds are more likely to say they experience discrimination, and biracial men are more conscious than biracial women of their status in society as people of color.

Social class also consistently predicts how biracials identify. Put simply: “Money whitens.” Biracial people who grew up in more affluent families or in more affluent neighborhoods are more likely to identify as white and less likely to identify with their minority race. Higher incomes enable biracials to display external markers of wealth and increase their social mobility; when coupled with their mixed-race appearance, this can lead biracials to be perceived as white.

That said, relatively few biracial people identify as white – only 14 percent in my sample. Among black-white biracials, the rate is even lower: Just 5 percent identify as white. The category “white” does not extend to biracial blacks as it does to biracial Asians and Latinos.” —Lauren Davenport

Alex Shashkevich, “Stanford scholar examines biracial youth’s political attitudes and self-identification factors,” Stanford News, March 29, 2018. https://news.stanford.edu/2018/03/29/biracial-youths-political-views-self-identification-examined/.

Even if hypodescent is no longer enforced, its effects remain. That is, the legacy of the one-drop rule—black pride—is undiminished for many who identify as multiracial even if the rule itself no longer legally dictates how they identify themselves.

The value of black pride cannot be overstated in its role of providing hope, dignity, and political strength to a population that has long existed within a racist white supremacist nation.¹ After centuries of American history that have consistently made it difficult to be anything but black (via hypodescent) and made black pride the most effective tool for combating white racism and discrimination, it is understandable why an African American might prefer that those with black ancestry identify themselves similarly. Certainly, racial solidarity is the chief objection to multiracial identity in contemporary discourse about multiracialness. Many commentators argue that multiracialism poses a potential threat to the continued struggles of African Americans by reducing the numbers of African Americans or distracting black multiracials from being wholly committed to African American causes. While this may be a problem in relation to some multiracial individuals (as well as some white multiracial-activist parents), for many Americans who identify as black–white, their multiracial identification does not detract from their black pride or their commitment to black political struggle. Even if hypodescent is no longer enforced, its effects remain. That is, the legacy of the one-drop rule—black pride—is undiminished for many who identify as multiracial even if the rule itself no longer legally dictates how they identify themselves.

Molly Littlewood McKibbin, Shades of Gray: Writing the New American Multiracialism (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018), 145.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2018 at 01:14Z and is filed under Excerpts/Quotes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Mixed Race Studies

Even if hypodescent is no longer enforced, its effects remain. That is, the legacy of the one-drop rule—black pride—is undiminished for many who identify as multiracial even if the rule itself no longer legally dictates how they identify themselves.

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