Lopsided Afro

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

The “mulatto escape hatch” (Degler 1986), also called the “intermediate mulatto stratum” (Safa 1998), refers to the notion that someone can be born black, yet become mulatto through an increase in social status, or intergenerational whitening. This intermediate category emerged from the large free colored population in many Latin American countries during the time of slavery (Safa 1998; Skidmore 1993; Smedley 2007). The creation of the mulatto category, which possessed some benefits over blacks, was a mechanism of social control insofar as the possibility of moving out of the category “black” inhibited alliances among people of African descent (Daniel 2006). Peter Wade (1997) contends that in Latin America, racially mixed children are recognized as socially distinct from their parents. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2004) explains that Latin American countries have a tri-racial system, in which an intermediate group buffers race conflict. Luisa Schwartzman (2007) also claims that, in Brazil, “browns serve as a buffer zone between blacks and whites” (p. 944).

Tanya Golash-Boza, “Does Whitening Happen? Distinguishing between Race and Color Labels in an African-Descended Community in Peru,” Social Problems, Volume 57, Number 1, (February 2010): 140.

Lopsided Afro

Lopsided Afro

Mixed Humans ~ Reflections on occupying a space of inbetweenness. Persistently grappling with identity.
2015-05-04

Brian Kamanzi
Cape Town, South Africa

Self Determination.

I never realised how practical those words would become for my life until I started to explore the world beyond the safety of my University. Work spaces where the politics of what is considered respectable are carried out with almost total compliance without anyone mentioning a word, without anyone signing a single suggestion to law.

It was and is suffocating.

I must admit though, this moment revived memories of my childhood.
Being a child of the “colonies” our British style schools and accompanying rules really struggled to accommodate students who just didn’t quite fit the profile.

My hair was just a disaster unless kept short.
In fact, my Dad’s distate for men with anything like long hair rang in stark synchornisation with a reality and imagination that reinforced in my mind that the very hair that came out of my head was essentially…..

Read the entire article here.

Tags: Brian Kamanzi, Mixed Humans, Mixed Humans ~ Reflections on occupying a space of inbetweenness. Persistently grappling with identity.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 4th, 2015 at 18:17Z and is filed under Africa, Articles, Autobiography, Media Archive, South Africa. 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

Lopsided Afro

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