zsana
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 Posted: Mon 19 Jun 2006 12:59 Post subject: TRIPPING on the COLOR LINE |
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Tripping on the Color Line: Blackwhite Multiracial Families in a Racially Divided World (Paperback)
by Heather M. Dalmage "The closer individuals live to the color line and the more disadvantaged they are by it, the more they find themselves reflecting on and reformulating..." (more http://www.amazon.com/gp/sitbv3/reader/103-9005391-1264640?asin=0813528445&pageID=S01A&checkSum=QDxnCqwJ8vQp6kBtCD0MjBgRfjnJjqNmLEQV9C4OjX4=)
Beth Gray's review for Interracial Voice, December 14, 2000
Reviewer: A reader
"Tripping on the Color Line" by Heather Dalmage
| Quote: | At first sitting, one isimpressed by the excellent exposition of both the concept of race andthe practice of institutionalized racism in the U.S.A. The language,politics, and ramifications of a socioeconomic structure based onracial classification and skin privilege are well presented anddiscussed. Particularly useful is the analysis of how both Afro-Americans and Euro-Americans maintain race and racism by"patrolling borders" and perpetuating the requirement of a false either/or identity in order to validate individuals andfamilies. Borderism functions not only to perpetuate racism bymaintaining purity and separatism but in so doing it also functions todeny living space to those of mixed race. Yet, having acknowledgedand examined the social denial of mixedness the author's bottom lineis nothing new. Mixed people do not have the right to identify themselves publicly as such and should be discouraged from doing so. While she seems to partially understand what it means for mixed peopleto live right on the very border she describes, Dalmage still supportsthe position that they must continue to endure an externally imposedidentity and the social and intrapsychic pressures created and enforced by monoracials. It is far easier to diminish and dismiss the complexity and variety of individual experience by subordinating it to a simplistic (and nonexistent) ideal of group homogeneity than it is to come to terms with reality.
The author discusses the significance of language (and lack of language) regarding race and examines arguments both for and against either changing or deleting racial categories. Interestingly, after noting the linguistic problems inherent in discussing both race and mixed race she is consistently inconsistent throughout her text in referring to white-black mixed individuals as biracial, multiracial, African American, or black. Thus, she further obscures mixed identity by not clarifying her own terminology and demonstrates exactly how language functions to annex mixedness to blackness . As long as nonsense phrases such as"white looking black man" or "light-skinned black"continue in common misusage they continue to perpetuate racism andhypodescent as established by the white "purity" myth. Such language denies reality itself as well as living space, choice of cultural affiliation, and personal identity to mixed race individuals with any known or perceived African ancestry. If a person can look white but be black then "black" is obviously a sociopolitical status rather than a "race". The book would have benefited from a deeper examination of what the author refers to as the "devaluation" of blackness, as well as an examinationof the trend in the white controlled media to employ mixed race actorsand models to portray "blacks". Doing so would also haverequired a deeper discussion and comprehension of why "blacks" compulsively claim black-white celebrities and public figures with any known African ancestry even when that ancestry is not visible or when it is obvious that the person claimed does not self-identify as "black" or Afro-American.
While Dalmage maintains that blacks cannot be racist because they do not have the power that whites do to determine others life chances, she ignores the fact that they did have the political power to determine others life choices. If the reader is to believe Dalmage, social justice is solely the prerogative of the group and the life choices of individuals are irrelevant. Whether the rights of the individual should be sacrificed to the idea of some greater good of the group is as old as Western philosophy. However, in this context her subscription to this view is just another form of the same old determinism and essentialism that she describes. On the surface she appears to make an admirable attempt to raise many pertinent issues and then address each of their several aspects in an objective manner. On second reading however, (especially of the final chapters), one is left with the inescapable impression that this book was written more to convince mixed people of partial African ancestry to "just check black" than to try to find new ways to frontally challenge whiteness and its self-supporting racist social system. This is particularly insidious as it is a white person (legitimized by the cloak of academic scholarship) writing on behalf of the 'Black Cause' about mixed individuals and telling those individuals where they owe their allegiance based solely on that infamous 'drop of blood'. This is precisely the same message both blacks and whites have been sending Native Tans for decades now going on centuries.
When it comes to race it is often true that people can only see what they've been taught to see or what they want to see. That's why so many "blacks" continue to assert that a black-white biracial person is "black". After all, that is what "whites" decreed so of course it is "truth". Therefore, it is obviously whites and not blacks who define "blackness". While it may be true that most whites see black-white mixed people as "just black", it is also true that whites who identify their own mixed children as black are only reinforcing such attitudes. Instead of renouncing their whiteness and subscribing to hypodescent for their children, whites in interracial marriages might consider breaking down the myth of white purity by indicating their children's "race" (where asked/required) as white. At least they should experiment with it since "eyeballers" are technically not supposed to complete this information on their behalf. In reality, parents can now write down whatever they choose. That at least would be an attempt at the deconstruction of "whiteness" and its system of unearned privileges based on an exclusiveness that derives from the myth of racial "purity".
The study's greatest weakness is its limited scope. The subtitle reveals a failing common to post-civil rights black-white interracial marriage partners. That is, they ignore the history of mixed race groups in this country and focus primarily on their own immediate experience and that of black-white individuals born during and after the civil rights era. Understandably, Dalmage writes as a participant-observer based on her nuclear family experience. However, by limiting the topic to white-black interracial couples with mixed children the author cannot escape the trap of the white/black dichotomy. The trap of the dichotomy is it's inherent lie that one is either black or white and that other racial groups or mixtures, both historical and contemporary, are unimportant to the dialogue on race. With this model, mixed race people become the target of charges of being a "buffer group" that benefits from a color continuum created by whites. The fact is that this continuum is also occupied by Asians, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, Hispanics/Latinos and all the other mixtures that are growing daily in variety and number. A really effective examination of race, racism, and mixed race in the 21st century in the U.S. must include comparative analyses of how these concepts are perceived and experienced by Native Americans, Asians, Hispanics/Latinos, etc. (and any mixed race persons whose ancestry derives in part from these groups). In what ways do these socially recognized "minority" groups ignore white racism and participate in the "devaluation of blackness"? Is there a "just check one" mindset among those in Asian-White families? If not, why not? Traditionally Chinese and Japanese in particular have not only devalued blacks but considered themselves superior to whites (and everyone else). At one time they had a horror of marrying outside the group. Now Asians have the highest rate of exogamy and the highest rate of non-whites marrying whites. Why is that? How do they regard their mixed children? Are Afro-Asian children devalued and Euro-Asian children privileged? Is the concept of "whiteness" being expanded in the new century (as it was in the past to include Greeks, Italians, Jews, etc.) to include Asians and biracial Asian-White individuals? How does the image of the white family as the model family negatively impact upon other family structures?
"Blacks" supposedly comprise approximately 12% of the total population. No one even knows the number of Native Tans (let alone the number of contemporary mixed race people) since they haven't been counted for 80 years. What exactly is the estimated number of people that "blacks" fear would have been "lost" to a multiracial identifier? Surely there are enough mixed race people who, whether by choice or assignment, have traditionally identified themselves |
More reviews...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813528445/103-9005391-1264640?v=glance&n=283155
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CYZ/is_1_29/ai_83790427 |
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