As opposed to challenging the racialized structure in the United States, Spencer argues the actions of the American multiracial movement protected Whiteness and was conservative—rather than transformative—of the existing U.S. racial order.

Scholars also analyze a multiracial movement that emerged around mixed-race identity in the 1990s. Rainier Spencer (2006, 2011) complicates previous scholars’ and activists’ claim that the emergence of multiraciality in the 1990s uncovered a new racial order. As opposed to challenging the racialized structure in the United States, Spencer argues the actions of the American multiracial movement protected Whiteness and was conservative—rather than transformative—of the existing U.S. racial order. Daniel and Castañeda-Liles (2006) similarly posit that the neoconservative rearticulation of racial classification to denote egalitarian ideals of individual choice influenced conservative politicians and policymakers’ push to add multiraciality to formalized methods of racial categorization. Melissa Nobles (2000) extends this pertinent analysis by centering on the discursive context of the multiracial movement. According to Nobles, multiracial public recognition in the midst of ongoing American cultural wars publicly legitimated multiracial visibility and helped disseminate discourse on multiraciality and create an imagined politicized community. Indeed, the emergence of multiracialism in the 1990s also influenced public recognition of multiraciality through increased marketing and commercialization of mixed-race identity and interracial families (DaCosta 2007).

Celeste Vaughan Curington, “Rethinking Multiracial Formation in the United States: Toward an Intersectional Approach,” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Volume 2, Number 1 (January 2016), 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2332649215591864.

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