Mixed Race Identity and Racial Ambiguity

norm for mixed race identification in US

Mixed people often identify or are identified as non-white; those with Black ancestry are typically identified as Black.

underconstructed mixed identities

Mixed identities lack clear standards or established scripts for how to identify or be identified.

motives for identification as mixed

Self-interest, avoiding disadvantaged status, false folk beliefs about biological race, and araciality (desire not to engage with race).

metaracial project of mixed identity

Biologically challenges the idea that all part-non-white people are just non-white; morally challenges the idea that racial identities can only be pure.

Root's Bill of Rights for People of Mixed Heritage (1993)

Asserts freedom for mixed people to self-identify and live as they choose, including not keeping races separate, identifying differently in different situations, and changing identity over time.

right not to keep the races separate within me

From Root's Bill of Rights; allows mixed people to integrate all aspects of their heritage rather than compartmentalizing.

right to identify myself differently in different situations

From Root's Bill of Rights; recognizes that identity may be context-dependent.

right to change my identity over my lifetime

From Root's Bill of Rights; recognizes that identity can evolve, more than once.

aracial mixed people

Mixed individuals who do not go out of their way to identify with any racial group and do not spend energy advocating for mixed race rights.

how aracial mixed people model the future

They might model how life could be for many more people if they made race less relevant to themselves.

passing (in racial identity)

Only an option for some based on appearance and context; historically a focus of public hysteria and fascination.

common beliefs about racial identity discernibility

Many believe there is a fact of the matter about racial identity (usually determined by ancestry) and that identity is discernible if one observes carefully enough.

"What are you?" as a racial question

The question asked when staring fails to resolve racial ambiguity; turns the addressed person into a thing and creates asymmetry between addresser and addressee.

domination staring

A kind of staring that fixes a person in racial systems in an attempt to control the other.

ocular evasiveness

The visual avoidance of another person.

baroque staring

The way we stare when confronted with an unusual object; the gaze is startled and lingers to absorb the novel into the familiar.

how baroque staring and ocular evasiveness objectify

They turn someone into an object of curiosity rather than recognizing them as a person.

alienation from verbal identity requests

A breakdown or deficiency in relationships; comes with a sense of being dominated and a sense of disconnectedness.

asymmetry in "What are you?"

The addresser asks the question as a person to another person, but the phrase turns the addressee into a thing, creating simultaneous connection and distance.

ideal recognition of racially ambiguous people

Founded on recognition of difference; bearing witness to singularity against the grain of a certain logic of racial perception, not subsuming under preexisting categories.

strategy for dealing with racial staring: return the stare

Look back at the person staring as a way to assert agency.

strategy for dealing with racial staring: look away

Signify that you do not care about the other's gaze and will not indulge their questioning.

strategy for dealing with racial staring: redirect the gaze

Direct the other's attention to something else besides your physical features.

when is it acceptable to ask about racial background?

In certain contexts, when the curiosity comes from a place of mutual recognition, where the other recognizes me as another in my very difference.