New Categories Listings for MixedRaceStudies.org |
New Categories Listings for MixedRaceStudies.org
2011-10-02
Over the next few days, I will be removing three frequently used tags (indexed items) and converting them into categories (which are listed on the right-hand side).
Thanks to Dr. G. Reginald Daniel for letting me flush out my ideas with him.
Slavery
Over three centuries of human bondage of peoples of African decent in the Americas has and continues to have an immense impact on the lives of people of color today. At the time of the first recorded, black/white “mixed-race” birth in 1620, according to historian Audrey Smedley, “the concept of race did not exist.” In the American colonies, the institutionalization of slavery necessitated the creation of laws that would attempt to prevent the unions between African and European colonists. It is perhaps not a stretch to state that without slavery there would be no “race,” and of course, no “mixed-race.”
Because of the long history of miscegenation in Brazil, the country is often thought of—erroneously—as a racial democracy. This is a well-documented myth. As Joan R. Dassin puts it, “Traditionally celebrated in Brazil as the means to ensure the tranquil mingling of the Portuguese, indigenous, and African races, miscegenation has long been glorified as the basis of the “cordial” national character.”
I created this site in early 2009 in anticipation of an increased number of discourses surrounding multiraciality (and race) as a direct result of the election of Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States. I was not disappointed. What I did not anticipate though, was the the sheer number of discourses about Obama not just ones inspired by Obama. As reluctant as I am to add a person as a category, the influence of Barack Obama cannot be dismissed.