Reproducing Race: The Paradox of Generation Mix [Review: Glazier]

Posted in Articles, Book/Video Reviews, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2011-11-03 01:46Z by Steven

Reproducing Race: The Paradox of Generation Mix [Review: Glazier]

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries
Volume 49, Number 2 (October 2011)

Steven D. Glazier, Adjunct Professor of Anthropology
University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Spencer, Rainier. Reproducing Race: The Paradox of Generation Mix. L. Rienner, 2011. 355p bibl index afp ISBN 9781588267511.

Spencer’s insightful analysis and critique of ideologies surrounding “multiracialism” in the 21st-century US highlights the “multiracial identity movement” and “generation mix” (young adults who see themselves as the first generation of Americans with parents of different races). As he correctly points out, this self-portrayal is false, since most black and white Americans are racially mixed. Part 1 (“The Mulatto Past”) offers a succinct overview of white American ideas about mulattoes—notably, the incorrect views of Chicago sociologists Robert Park, Everett Stonequist, and Edward Reuter, who depicted mulattoes as conflicted and psychologically flawed… …Containing both careful philosophical arguments and unsubstantiated pronouncements, Spencer’s presentation is highly repetitious, but nevertheless an important, innovative study. Summing Up: Recommended.

Read the entire review in the October 2011 issue of Choice.

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