« The irony here is that while the discourse of choice in racial identification suggests we as individuals are determining for ourselves who we want to be, in fact we are “choosing” within a given set of epistemological, social, and political conditions that make only certain choices possible.
‘Loving’ as the official birth of Multiracial America? »

This book examines two of the most insidious ideas in American history.

This book examines two of the most insidious ideas in American history. The first is the belief that interracial marriage is unnatural.  The second is the belief in white supremacy. When these two ideas converged, with the invention of the term “miscegenation” in the 1860s, the stage was set for the rise of a social, political, and legal system of white supremacy that reigned through the 1960s and, many would say, beyond.

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Pascoe, Peggy. What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America. (New York, London: Oxford University Press, 2008). 1.

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