U.S. Racial Legislation and Black Mixed-Race Women’s Identity

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Born from a sexually promiscuous black mother and a white father who could not resist the sexual lure of a black savage, emerges the tragic mulatto. She is so stricken by her circumstances that she completely rejects her African heritage to pass as white and searches for her identity through having sex with numerous men. She has the looks and the class of the white people but deep down she is just as savage as her mother was, making her a great mistress but never a woman to marry. This is the stereotype of the tragic mulatto portrayed in the late 19th and 20th century in novels such as Nella Larsen’s Passing and movies such as Imitation of Life. Peola, the lighter skinned mixed race character in Imitation of Life chooses to pass as white until, when her mother dies guilt overwhelms her and she reveals her African ancestry. But what shaped Peola’s racial identity and if she were here today, where would she find belonging?

Within a society that still holds the vestiges of 400 years of chattel slavery, black and white racial identity has formed within a dichotomist system that maintains racial hierarchy. Multi-racial identities are not exempt from these restrictive categories but instead have been shaped by it. As miscegenation grew in the United States, so did mixed race bodies and as brown, tan and olive complexions populated the United States, whiteness and its purity became threatened. Mixed race women have been primary targets for racial scrutiny, including being subject to sexual objectification and stereotyping. In this paper I will argue that because of a history of dichotomizing black and white racial identity, biracial or multiracial are still not racial categorizations that are visibly recognized by most Americans. In...

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Mixed Chicks Chat won‘Best Podcast’ from the Black Weblog Awards. The hosts have been featured on NPR, CNN, and in the Guardian, The San Francisco Chronicle and Blur Digital. For more information visit www.mixedchickschat.com

For more information on the Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival, visit http://www.mxroots.org/

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Lee, Felicia R. "Pushing Boundaries, Mixed-Race Artists Gain Notice." New York Times 06 July 2011: C1. Print.

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