[00:00:15]
>> It's great to see such a full house on
this stream of Monday evening so we're so
glad you can join us My name is Mark Tang
Potter I'm an I'm a junior research scholar
here at the Asian Pacific American Institute
at N.Y.U. on behalf of everyone here at A.P.A.
I want to welcome and thank you all for joining
us tonight for this exciting program.
[00:00:36]
So I've had the pleasure of working on putting
this program together which really began to
formulate itself when I was introduced to
the respective work of Professor and now I'm
a tawny and Professor Jared Sexton around
the same time and as an aspiring scholar in
comparative ethnic studies and as an extra
Asian American there were work immediately
spoke to me and challenge me on an academic
political and personal level.
[00:01:02]
In contrast to public discourse about mixed
race politics that is so often sensationalized
or filtered through the narrow lens of personal
experience alone tonight's participants each
raise profound questions about what it means
for more and more individuals in the U.S.
Canada and beyond to identify and be identified
as mixed race or multi racial.
[00:01:24]
They're critical lens injects much needed
structural analysis and historical context
into the conversation asking what Multi Racial
organizing scholarship and classification
truly in pay for structures of racial violence
and power. More personally their work for
me raises an ultimate question of how those
identifying as mixed race can confront complicity
in the logics of structural racism and channel
our identities and experiences towards radical
politics in service of a broader racial justice
movement so I'd like to begin by introducing
our moderator for the evening Professor and
morning who are so.
[00:02:00]
Please could be here to join us in conversation.
An associate professor of sociology here and
why you and a faculty affiliate of N.Y.U.
Abu Dhabi Professor morning has researched
and written extensively on mechanisms of census
classification personal identification and
individual conceptions of racial difference
in global perspective in this capacity she
is consulted on racial statistics for the
European Commission in Brussels and is a member
of the U.S. Census Bureau's National Advisory
Committee on racial ethnic and other populations
She's the author of the nature of race how
scientists think and teach about human difference
was the recipient of a two thousand and eight
two thousand and nine Fulbright research award
to visit the University of Milan coca and
is currently a visiting scholar at the Russell
Sage Foundation in New York City please join
me in welcoming Professor Moore I ask you
and thank you so much for joining me in what
promises to be an absolutely terrific conversation
I think it's so exciting because as some of
you will certainly know what we really have
with us here are the is the next generation
of scholars of multiracialism and I'll use
that word multiracialism military shall easy.
[00:03:10]
To to get at the perception or the recognition
or even the embrace of multiple race ancestry
or even just big knowledge of the possibility
of its existence Now the reason I say that
we really have the next generation of scholars
here is because they are pushing us beyond
the first generation of academic writing on
multiracialism which often had a very personal
individual level identity theory and kind
of perspective and they're pushing us to move
beyond that to build on that to ask us to
consider multiracialism as a political project
or to borrow the famous phrase of only to
racial project where multi really racialism
serves or at least leads to particular political
ends with a deliberate.
[00:04:00]
Or unwittingly So they're really taking us
in new directions they're also I think really
prodding us to think in new ways because of
their attention to issues of gender and or
sexuality and the ways in which it intersects
with multiracialism So this is really going
to be an exciting and I think innovating conversation
that we're going to get have with them now
the Asian Pacific American Studies Institute
has been very generous in giving me a lot
of leeway to do what I would like with this
session they've given me a lot of time after
their comments to to give a response to ask
my own questions to moderate a conversation
but with such a great turnout I'm really going
to try to dial back on that and give you guys
as much of an opportunity as possible to bring
your questions to the fore so I will be balancing
that.
[00:04:49]
I'll start by introducing our speakers. In
order professor my Tony will speak first and
then Professor Sexton and then open up the
floor to them. Each of them will have fifteen
minutes to to make their comments so Professor
minima tiny is an associate professor in the
Department of Human Geography and the program
in journalism at the University of Toronto
Scarborough she is the author of mixed race
and Nisha resisting the romanticization of
multiracial published in two thousand and
fourteen and she's also coeditor of the volume
global mixed race to which I'm a contributor
I have to say in advertising any potential
conflict of interest she is also very interesting
Lee a former television news journalist for
the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and
also former president of the Association for
Canadian studies as well as former chair of
the Center for Excellence on research on immigration
and settlement.
[00:05:48]
Professor Sexton is an associate professor
and director of the program in African-American
studies at the University of California Irvine
where he's also fleeted with the Department
of film and media studies. He's the author
of amalgamation schemes anti blackness and
the critique of multiracialism published in
two thousand and eight by the University of
Minnesota press and he's also the coeditor
of a special issue of critical sociology titled
race and the variations of discipline So again
these are people who really contributed tremendously
to contemporary thinking about lady and I'm
sure we're really going to enjoy her comments
so we'll start first with Professor Mahtani
thank you so much for that very generous introduction
and it's a true honor to be here I've been
looking forward to this for many days now
and I really want to thank Mark in particular
for organizing much with such generosity of
spirit thank you for making this visit so
pleasurable and it's truly an honor to be
in the same room with Karen Sexton whose work
has been highly influential for me as I've
gone about trying to think through a a more
kind of a radical critique of what we've been
seeing in multi-racial studies more broadly
so I've titled this talk what is critical
in critical mixed race studies and illusion
of inclusion.
[00:06:58]
Now critical studies is enjoying an increasingly
lauded place in academe there's been celebratory
write ups in the Huffington Post and her old
inauguration of a prominent New Journal and
a bi annual conference at De Paul University
critical mixed race studies has been seductively
to those I condemn it's identifying as mixed
race it has created a place for those who
identify as mixed to share stories and to
us tentatively feel less alone however when
one takes a closer look at the field a pistol
a logical foundations they're ultimately shaky
critical mixed race studies remain suffused
by the grammar of good intentions it offers
no illusion of inclusion.
[00:07:42]
Critical mixed race studies is not yet thoroughly
engage with the incisive critique offered
by people like Garrett in particular that
it is anti-black it is also not yet fully
explore the way it can be interpreted as indigenous
a little bit more about what it means that
it is not yet successfully interrogated it's
probably.
[00:08:00]
Matic academic Genesis whose analytics arose
from second wave feminism and it's a company
mantra the personal is political nor the effect
that such early research from Asian white
psychologists like Maria rude and the early
one nine hundred ninety S. had upon its inception
and Georgetown a really wonderful I think
is working really valuable in terms of critiquing
Maria roots of Bill of Rights for racially
mixed people which we can also talk about
later I think this work is into exhibited
an intellectually weak what we call a liberal
humanism and we can also discuss them more
detail it was also largely influenced by the
outcry from indignant white mothers of black
children who are uncomfortable with their
children identifying as black finally there
hasn't been a concerted effort and this is
where I think we need to do some thinking
about the ways in which this popularity and
potential increase in funding has had in terms
of the money that's been going towards critical
mixed race studies upon black studies black
Canadian studies and indigenous studies more
broadly and I'm seeing a very disturbing trend
here and we can talk about that from the administrative
point of view of the neo liberal universities
ongoing.
[00:09:06]
Escalation. Also just today that the euphoria
surrounding the mixed race subject can dangerously
infer racial superiority over his or her mano
racial counterparts keeping white supremacy
and racial rift cation firmly in place as
writer Spencer reminds us multi racial ideology
is far more complicit than some verses of
current deployments of race so Jerry has done
a superb job in his book outlining how the
principle of fact of multiracialism has not
been a challenge to white supremacy so I'm
looking for hearing more of his comments on
that but I'm really interested in thinking
about her methodological proclivities have
influenced a particular trajectory in critical
mixed race studies argue that the current
state of critical mixed race studies is mired
in what I call the present tense I use that
term deliberately to draw attention to the
present day temporality that is the foundational
think is the foundation of.
[00:10:00]
Much work in the subdiscipline I'll also turn
to my own work to disseminate to demonstrate
how a political and historical Canadian model
multi-racial up holds the multicultural claims
of the Canadian settler state and these ideas
are Example five more in my book mixed race
and Asia just a little bit about the books
I think it's a kind of gives a sense of what
I'm trying to make an argument here the book
really asks What work does the label of mixed
race do to support a romanticized notion of
race in gauging with interviews with women
twenty four women who self identified and
that's a really important part of the project
identified as mixed race I make the case that
Canada's romance with multi ratio governs
both public perceptions and personal accounts
of the mixed race experience in Canada I explained
how Canadian mixed race identity is a product
of colonial formations created and reflected
through various cultural representation the
Scylla tainted through certain forms of cultural
amnesia or strategic forgetting the book explains
that mixing in of itself cannot be seen as
political or progressive instead it can distract
us for more precise forms of racial understanding
analyzing more precise forms of racial oppression
including thinking about the members of most
marginalized groups including blacks and Aboriginal
people so let me return this question around
temporality except to very in for me that's
important focus the emphasis on documenting
the contemporary experiences of mixed race
people requires and in turn regulates a certain
epistemological framework this focus on the
present has resulted in part for me in pure
call analyses of interviews with mixed race
subjects who understandably tend to emphasize
their own present day personal experience
of mixed race such analyses of mixed race
do not do much to illuminate both the coercive
and consensual historical and geographical
conditions under which multiracial identity
becomes possible the geo political histories
informing.
[00:12:00]
The shifting conditions become occluded our
jobs as critical mixed race scholars if we
choose to identify that way should be to make
these conditions more visible ensuring that
we do not romanticize the clonal histories
that produce subjects' and focus on an individual's
personal experience of race at a day to day
level can actually work to obscure structural
racism and people like an income of Kalani
have done really important work of talking
about that ever manes a singular and individual
story there is a limit to what these stories
can do if they are disconnected from collective
common struggles and yet I also think we need
to really be more careful about we understand
this idea of a collective common struggle
and again we can't imagine size that this
well it's something that I'm Anyway I'm sure
we'll talk about that more later we need to
examine how the calculus mode of production
has informed the emergence and implementation
of the mixed race category of identification
particularly through the way in which we've
modified multiracialism in an academic context
I think that's something else we need to talk
about as well if critical mix race to race
actually wants to be critical it will have
to take a long cold and hard look at itself
and the multi-racial movement and the ongoing
discussion about multi-racial ality in the
academic context and look at the way it's
up held ongoing racial inequalities particularly
for certain racial groups and blacks and indigenous
in particular has been hinting at moving beyond
the present tense towards historical specificity
requires attending to at least two key issues
first in countries in the global north certain
prior racial formations including white black
white indigenous and white nonwhite have deeply
structure sutured and inform the racial context
or mixed race people identify themselves second
this means mixed race people may participate
in inexplicably intertwined racial formations
where they experience racial privilege in
relation to groups of people who are counted
as black or indigenous including those who
might be considered mix but are instead seen
as black some mixed race people seek comfortable
refuge in the spaces that are defined as neither
black nor indigenous and that inherent privilege
needs to be.
[00:14:00]
Just so in my own work I saw how this kind
of process took place through the interviews
that I conducted some of the women that I
interviewed define themselves as mixed race
but also as a model for an optimistic Canadian
citizenship they may well to be defined as
model multiracial as they marry racial liberalism
to a benign form of Canadian nationalism expressing
a deep affection for the nation let me give
you two quotes that kind of illustrate this
point this is a quote from someone calling
Sarah who identified herself as Filipina an
Irish twenty four university student and she
said Well I think being mixed race is very
typical Canadian That's very much in step
with that and then another woman who identified
one calling curity twenty four French Irish
English group Caribbean an Indian said I should
be the new symbol for Canada I am one big
melting pot of stuff I'm a stew a big Canadian
stew.
[00:14:56]
So how might we read these kind of exercise
interviews a bit more problematically they
saw the mere experience of identifying as
mixed race as a progressive gesture towards
building a new and improved Democratic state
apparatus for some mixed race women identifying
as mixed race means carefully not referring
to race politics at all diversity is recognized
without a sense of the power politics at play
a rhetorical emblem of successful integration
they unwittingly reproduce and maintain that
Kannan me of white supremacy through neutral
affiliations with the nation state so how
is the mixed race body deployed and co-opted
in the Canadian context to allow for a certain
kind of new liberal multiculturalism to thrive
neo liberalism as you no doubt know tells
a story of a self-sufficient autonomy person
who can conveniently detach from historical
and cultural precursors to pursue a self interested
project of freedom and money that women interviewed
seem to be able to see themselves as disconnected
from historical racial matrices in order to
focus on their individual personal histories
drawn from.
[00:16:00]
Personal paths to envision an optimistic and
progressive future of racial harmony by seeing
ourselves as the new figure for Canada through
this emblem of the of a stew her she saw herself
as a kind of racial trailblazer she's able
to identify as a poster child for Canada and
multiculturalism but this exalted status is
only available to certain racialized bodies
individuals who present a particular phenotype
as racially ambiguous and Michelle Obama's
done a really important job of suggesting
that these are the most successful poster
children for multi-racial a he and I quote
from her here people who wish to self identify
but do not appear ambiguous or ambiguous and
and that's a really crucial point of it are
less suited to service political representatives.
[00:16:43]
Increasing number of mixed race people in
Canada and vision as symbols of progress they
can be drafted in and shape multicultural
narratives and even makea reminds us cultural
difference has been reconfigured and appropriated
to strengthen national identity to create
a unified although hybrid narrative of national
progress or the Canadian national character
is produced as innocent unwittingly or not
some of the mixed race women in the study
see themselves as a symbol of tolerance as
modernizing agents of a multicultural new
world order I suggest that my den of flying
as a mixed race within the contemporary political
context critical mixed race discourse a certain
kind of strategic forgetting about racialized
histories must take place this tendency to
see multi-racial as something new and different
obscures violent histories it may be simply
far more convenient to discard these histories
and think more about the way in which created
multiculturalism supports that kind of forgetting
that I describe I think we must come to grips
with the opportunities privileges and power
that accompany the experience of being mixed
race and being seen as mixed race how do we
unconsciously the silicate of forgetfulness
about the original struggles and conflicts
that our ancestors faced without comparable
compromising our authenticity when telling
our stories about the complex experience of
race is their way of remembering and engaging
with multi racial histories that recognizes
the violent materiality that so often accompanies
Interracial Intimacies while also acknowledging
these intimacies as a site of continuing and
ongoing racisms as well as sites as intercultural
exchange momenta recontextualized nation of
these histories mean to our understanding
of the.
[00:18:31]
In other words how we choose to remember our
pasts. And I'm a jogger for by training some
very interesting how we might think about
this history but also also think about this
in terms of geography the geographer Katherina
Catterick suggests that geographies of our
past leap into geographies of our future the
stories that we tell are tethered to human
acts that preserve obscure and a race our
history in the name of what lies ahead and
I found this idea particularly provocative.
[00:18:58]
The process of recalling and carefully tracing
these histories may allow for a different
kind of story telling one whose narratives
are not only materially possible and marked
in particular geographies but are also able
to unveil the legacy of past and present racial
injustices we need to ask new questions not
just what does it mean to be mixed race but
how the meaning of mixed race changes over
time and space without falling back into this
mantra of race is a social construction which
I find to be particularly debilitating for
ongoing conversations a multi-racial already
mixed race operates not just as a white but
also as a when and where and we'll talk about
it but the hopefully a bit more about how
damn it kneels Pittsford some really important
ideas around this concept of when is a mixed
race the act of an earthing buried stories
may help us see that past traumas of colonizations
have ongoing resonances that inextricably
shaped our present as well as our future the
question is not whether or not individuals
who identify as mixed race are willing to
challenge the portrayal of themselves and
the political bio curiosities I don't think
we protest too much the question is whether
or not we're willing to be more honest about
the ways that we may be complicit in contributing
to the oppression of other racial groups in
the process of resisting those stereotypes
what I call the mixed race and non of this
clever people come together and say this is
my name and I'm mixed race and we celebrate
the fact that room.
[00:20:19]
We can begin by being more vigilant in our
efforts to understand the tactical and strategic
qualities of the popular multi-racial discourse
which maintain white supremacy particularly
when this discourse seizes upon both extraordinary.
But also the ordinary elements of early racial
discourses which are then mobilised to benefit
mixed race people it is up to develop more
nuanced political subject positions addressing
how various forms of political economy and
the commodification of various raced identities
produce social systems the Correspondent Leigh
informed the contours of racial categories
we might also began by on thinking our present
geographical organization in order to move
towards document think a multi-racial sense
of place that is virtually impossible under
contemporary Eurocentric Geographic arrangements
such a revision and calls for a drastic shift
in imagination beyond seeing mixed race people
as either confined and constrained or limitless
and unstoppable thank you very much thanks
as well to Mark for the generous invitation
for handling all of the logistics which I
know can be a nightmare so soon we're going
cross country.
[00:21:31]
To Professor morning as well for the generous
introduction and Professor Mahtani for giving
us what I think could be the substance of
our discussion if I were able to just sit
down and and start it now but since they've
prodded me to say a few things myself I'll
offer my comments to that effect.
[00:21:53]
I'm reminded in hearing Professor Tony's comments
that the double entendre of the title of my
first book about the mation schemes is generally
lost on on readers whether they're you know.
From the OR OR OR critical it's not just a
reference to you know a kind of older discourse
of race mixture in the ways in which that
might be taken up into various political projects
for better or worse today but it's also in
the British contests it context is especially
a term of both governance and of economics.
[00:22:30]
What we would here in the US call mergers
and acquisitions so something to think about
those lines. OK. In responding to the question
what is radical about mixed race we might
answer there is nothing radical about mixed
race if we assume that such radicality would
stand in some way from the novelty of the
phenomena with a discourse that names it as
a point of reference we have for instance
Hortense Spillers observation in a terse and
relatively unknown commentary entitled mammas
baby Papas to responding to the two thousand
and eleven New York Times race remakes the
series spearheaded by Susan solemnly then
a reporter at The New York Times and now a
national correspondent for A.B.C..
[00:23:19]
There Spillers writes that contrary to the
breaking news rhetoric of the leading publication
racial ambiguity is quote a new world thematic
probably about seven centuries old by now.
For those doing the math in your head that
take suspect to something approaching the
fourteenth century C.E. and to an examination
of the broad social political and economic
developments unfolding in historical outline
within and between Africa Asia and Europe
as there is not yet anything but speculation
about the existence of the Americas in this
early global encounter we see that the thematics
of the new world begin as transformations
well prior to the Columbia Advent.
[00:24:01]
Three massive shifts shifts deserve mention
on this score first the shift in the principle
vector of trade in slaves Africans from the
transparent and Indian Ocean Basin toward
the newer trans-Atlantic circuit or what historian
Patrick Manning would call respectively the
Oriental and Occidental slave trades whose
pivot entailed a deepening and intensification
of the internal slave trade throughout most
of the African continent as well.
[00:24:29]
It's crucial to note again. That the transatlantic
Occidental slave trade launched its maritime
enterprise along the north south axis centered
about the Mediterranean region in the mid
fifteenth century well before European imperial
expansion to the Americas. Second the shift
in mode of production from feudalism towards
mercantilism in Europe including the systematic
enclosure of the common so crucial to the
incipient stage of capitalism in the early
modern period and third the stirrings of renaissance
humanism throughout European intellectual
life unleashing debates that would establish
fundamental terms for the subsequent formulation
and eventual consolidation of the idea and
practice of racial differentiation what we
find following the lead of Elizabeth Don and
for a volume documentary history of the transatlantic
slave trade whose landmark research Spillers
consults in the course of writing her most
famous essay is that already by the mid fourteen
hundreds at least the magic of skin color
is already installed as a decisive factor
in human dealings.
[00:25:34]
In this is zone of convergence slavery becomes
progressively circumscribed to the populations
of sub-Saharan Africa and racialized as black
and as a result the status of the enslaved
is degraded relative to its pre-modern and
ancient variance across most of the world.
That being said from another vantage there
is nothing more radical than mixed race if
we approach the question it raises and I stress
in the abstract Thomas Holt argued to the
point over a decade ago in his contribution
to the American anthropology associations
public education project understanding race
and human variation.
[00:26:15]
For Holt and I quote the very possibility
of the mixture of races frames and indeed
has always framed the larger problematic of
race as such that possibility and I would
add theoretical possibility forms one of its
essential components at one. Enabling and
destabilizing racial thought and regimes all
of the things taken for granted about race
are brought into question when races a stent
simply mix not least of them the biological
reality of race itself as well as whether
and to what extent race is best understood
as by biology or culture and indeed what motivates
racism and quote.
[00:26:53]
The recently form critical mixed race Studies
Association and journal which Professor Mentone
mentioned in her talk stand in prime a facia
agreement the fisher website describes the
intellectual political project as quote the
trans racial trans disciplinary and trans
national critical analysis of the institutionalization
of social cultural and political orders based
on dominant conceptions of race but as we
see that analysis is immediately hamstrung
by the assumption that emphasizing quote the
mutability of race and the prosody of racial
boundaries ensures the critique of local and
global injustices rooted in systems of racialization.
[00:27:34]
That is to say to assumes that dominant conceptions
of race do not already acknowledge when they
do not emphasize even deploy the mutability
of race and the prosody of racial boundaries
in order to institutionalized unjust social
cultural and political orders it assumes more
importantly that what is what is crucial about
a racial order is its relative mutability
or porosity rather than the violence of its
hierarchical structure vertical or horizontal
difference what's ninety degrees between friends.
[00:28:07]
That the idea of mixed race raises questions
about the larger problematic of race as such
does not thereby ensure that those questions
will be posed in the most adequate way or
that they will not solicit the most reactionary
quest for resolution thinking in disorder
to borrow a phrase from Ari Judy can and often
enough does give rise to a Rage for Order
that closes down thinking in the name of a
certain knowledge.
[00:28:30]
I've written about this dynamic in my own
research through the concept of the racial
suture. In fact regimes of racialization have
long worked with and through mutability I'm
poor Aussie through figures of mixture as
much as through figures of purity front spent
on described at mid century as the fluid metaphysics
of the delirious man a key ism of race in
the last generation one might revisit works
ranging from Spillers earlier one thousand
nine hundred seven article notes on an alternative
model or Robert Young's one thousand nine
hundred five colonial desire or Teresa's a
code mix two thousand and four the mulatto
in the politics of race or Daniel Sharpstein
a word winning two thousand and eleven book
the invisible line an extended quote from
Sharpstein suffices to sharpen the focus he
writes.
[00:29:23]
Ideologies of racial purity and pollution
are as old as America and indeed older and
so is interracial mixing yet the one drop
rule did not as many have suggested make all
mixed race people black from the beginning
African-Americans assimilated into white communities
across the south often becoming white did
not require the deception normally associated
with racial passing whites knew that certain
people were different let them cross the color
line anyway these communities were not islands
of racial tolerance however they could be
as committed to slavery segregation and white
supremacy as anywhere else and so could their
newest members in fact it was one of the things
that made them white the history of the color
line is one of which people have lived quite
comfortably with contradiction.
[00:30:12]
Commitment to slavery not matters of appearance
or lineage as one of the things that made
them white. Is there a structural homology
today in the can calm the commitment to hyper
segregation disciplinary welfare punitive
schooling racial profiling and mass and prison
it or to the. Apple menu of ideological company
wants to the ongoing repression of black freedom
movement white no longer means the same thing
post civil rights of course or rather the
same thing no longer means simply white but
whiteness as the historical formation of an
internally differentiated social category
should not be hypothesized there are other
emergent or re emergent possibilities as what
Charles Gallagher terms racial redistricting
expands the bounds of white whiteness in our
time while lending even greater salience to
any and every indication of non blackness.
[00:31:07]
Spillers in turn **** quote to call oneself
mixed race or black and white or something
and something else means what precisely what
work is that supposed to do for you her reply
is worth taking seriously. She says. We very
much doubt that the Fury here is that there
are not enough boxes on the census form or
a deficit of classic atory terms or the prohibition
to check more than one or even the thwarted
desire to express racial pride but rather
the dictates of a muted self-interest that
wishes to carve its own material and political
successes out of another's hide in other words
if racial ambiguity or looking that way can
be amplified and translated into a legitimate
political interest as it is increasingly becoming
a commercial one then the padded new racism
that comes about as a result will gladly declare
a new class of winners I would suggest that
such self interest is muted not only for the
listener but for the speaker as well.
[00:32:11]
In other words the differentiation and to
stance ation always at work and the articulation
of mixed race is driven by sources aims and
objects that remain obscure even or especially
to the subject of multiracialism and this
obscurity is essential to the leaps of logic
required to massage or manage the unavoidable
contradictions to deflect otherwise pressing
questions and to bring the multi-racial claim
and its cohorts into a sort of coherence.
[00:32:40]
Most acutely there is Lewis Gordon who twenty
years ago raised the bar in his one thousand
nine hundred five article critical mixed race
theory from which the new Association Journal
well as its title his thesis mainly there
is no way to reject the principle that there
is something wrong with being black beyond
the willingness to be black is derived from
extensive engagement with finance thoughts
on the global power and pervasiveness of what
he calls Negro Phobos Genesis and Gordon's
intervention has hardly been addressed or
in contrast pervasively challenge within the
literature of multiracialism.
[00:33:18]
Neither has Gordon's corollary call for a
critical mixed race theory that operates by
way of what he terms a suicidal irony in ethical
pursuit of a black and world. Instead critical
next race studies proceeds in the main as
if the article was never published to say
nothing of the larger body of work it informs
and of which it is a part Gordon's many books
and articles represent elements of a cogent
and far reaching critique of the political
impetus or impulse or we might say desire
behind the emergence of multiracialism including
not only the work of my esteemed colleagues
and Co panelists but also to repeat some names
already mentioned David Bruns my complete
acoss the other Dolmetsch Adrian Davis Shelley
Long.
[00:34:05]
David Hollander when Lena Joseph Jennifer
Lee income aka Lonnie Melissa noble Steven
small Rainier Spencer Christina Sue Edward
tell us Peter Wade Kim Williams and many more
aside them. At this point we might ask in
a phenomena and register does this leave multi-racial
studies with no other option but to turn black
or disappear.
[00:34:29]
Is this really the precondition of being ethical
in an anti-black world or is this not just
the enforcement of hypo descent from below
the much decried bane of the multiracial experience
the charge is spurious but it has its purposes
if I might be indulged a brief reply to critics
in closing I recall that amalgamation schemes
was first reviewed some years ago in a special
issue of the black scholar amid the hurried
appraisal offer there the reviewer does get
something right a bit for the wrong reasons
when claiming that the book quote sets the
sets up a tautology or multiracial studies
is defined as anti-black and if it is not
anti-black then it is not multi-racial studies.
[00:35:13]
Though the judgement is crude I might continue
to define multi-racial studies as axiomatically
anti-black which is to say at the level of
its guiding assumptions and premises if that's
as plainly as the point needs to be made for
fulsome discussion and debate to happen rather
one might better say that anti blackness is
irreducible for the formation of any multiracialism
and moreover insists that anti blackness is
not nearly as transparent a notion as one
might think the curious fact is that every
view would use the notion of tautology to
accuse the critique of multiracialism of a
police operation if it is not anti-black and
it is not multi racial studies if we unpack
the triple negative then the charge might
sound something like this there is no such
thing as pro black multi-racial studies.
[00:36:03]
In other words the review for. And that this
particular black scholar does not recognize
multiracial friends and allies due to a too
black assumption that if one identifies as
black or brown there is Tommy Shelby puts
it if one identifies with blackness in a way
consistent with the principles and goals of
anti-racism then one has no multi-racial identified
friends and allies.
[00:36:26]
In the self and closed racial paranoia the
fantasy of global persecution prevents the
black identified from accepting acceptance
and some much needed help as well but it also
and more importantly prevents them from recognizing
the lives of others. In academic circles the
diagnosis is a failure to conduct sufficient
research and the prescription for recommended
reading involves supposedly better titles
and multi-racial studies and adjacent academic
fields where lumination and reassurance await
uncanny advice for the only criticism on offer
is that the sample is simply not representative
enough in this the review is paradigmatic
of the text critical reception since then
none to my knowledge identify misreadings
or misunderstandings of the primary and secondary
sources under consideration or claim that
the argument is unsound as far as it goes
the problem rather is that the criticism takes
aim at quote easy targets and picks at low
hanging fruit these are comments that I've
heard off the record so I'm talking out of
school here.
[00:37:31]
The anxiety accompanying the reading then
is about the parameters of a general implication
we're not all like that. It's a concern about
where to cut the border where to draw the
line and how to maintain it how to say who
isn't is not who's in and who's out this is
not an empirical problem regarding the breadth
of literature review or the diligence or fairness
of the critic however but a structural problem
regarding the disemboweled logic or pre logic
or paralyze of an entire discursive formation
we might call it the logic of categorical
difference.
[00:38:06]
What I'm saying is this a probe like multi-racial
studies a multi-racial studies that is not
anti-black a genuinely critical mixed race
studies would be nothing other than an aspect
of black studies itself. Far from setting
up a tautology for those investigating the
politics of race mixture we have made reference
here to a heuristic that gives the lie to
the line of demarcation drawn loudly and uncertainly
at present between critical mixed race studies
and the field of black studies it is meant
to enlighten might this be a new color line.
[00:38:40]
Against the opportunistic description of a
kind of parochialism in the discourse of African
Americans in the United States and elsewhere
we might describe black studies as that open
secret whose object is the critique of western
civilization and whose aim is to extend and
deepen everyone's critical and imagined relation
to the terms abolition and reconstruction.
[00:39:04]
Thanks I think you'll agree that the speakers
have given us a lot of food for thought very
generously the organizer to give me a few
minutes to to respond before we move into
our kind of conversation and including amongst
the speakers and with audience I thought I
would use this time just very briefly to say
a word about my own work to give you a sense
of the perspective that I'm bringing to this
this topic and will also allow me to lead
into the first question that I'd like to pose
to the speaker so then it will have you guys
come up.
[00:39:37]
So my own research intersects with the topic
of multiracial of the primarily in three ways
one as Mark mentioned I study official census
classification in the United States over time
and around the world and and I've been particularly
interested in the opportunities that people
get to express mixed identities here and in
other countries so that's was part of the
work that I've done contributing to the volume
that professor a tiny edited.
[00:40:05]
And I should of that also is as Mark mentioned
my service currently with the Census Bureau
advisory committee that advises on racial
and ethnic classification and I mention that
just to say that at the very at this very
moment the U.S. Census Bureau is working on
his designs for the next census which is going
to the two thousand and twenty census with
respect to how race and ethnicity are going
to be enumerated on the census and that even
though the question of enumerating mixed race
people is not the front and center issue it
was before the two thousand census when the
U.S. Census for the first time let people
check identify with more than one racial group
it is still is I just want to pass this along
it still is a topic that the bureau is grappling
with and so they are right now this year in
the field testing different question formats
that are designed to encourage people to feel
comfortable identifying with more than one
Reese and not to overlook the possibility
that they may have to do that on the census
so we'll see what that does with the numbers
as you may know already on the two previous
censuses that have let people identify with
more than one race that number has fluctuated
between two and three percent so it's been
a gross undercount of that population in the
U.S. And so we might see what a different
approach to ration might do some difference
in the structures might do in the next count
so I just want to throw that in is something
to be thinking about moving forward.
[00:41:32]
The second year of my research that intersects
with a topic multiracial has to do with the
ways in which individuals find themselves
on census forms again here or abroad the ways
in which individuals interpret the categories
that they have to confront in the ways they
reason about how they or other should answer
those questions and then finally and this
is really at the heart of the work that I
do today I focus a lot on what I call people's
concepts of racial difference and by that
I mean the the working model.
[00:42:05]
That we have the kind of complex web of belief
that we have about the nature of racial difference
so I'm particularly interested in the extent
I should say in the United States although
I do some of this work in Europe as well but
in the U.S. some particularly interested in
the extent to which Americans think about
racial difference along any of three lines
so one is what we often call the sensualist
framework where people believe that what Reeses
are are biologically demarcated groups their
sets of people who share some suite of physical
characteristics they might be genetic they
might be surface phenotypic markers but that
would be one strand of thought the biological
or sensualist concept of race that's very
prevalent in the United States there's also
would have called the cultural strain in which
people think well what a race is is really
a group of people who share common cultural
practices and norms they speak the same language
they celebrate the same holidays they have
similar dress whatever it might be that's
how we know who belongs to a race and then
finally there is the constructivist idea beloved
of sociologists and anthropologists but which
hasn't made a whole lot of leeway or headway
I should say rather in the American population
at large which maintained simply that really
racial groups are man made to use an old fashioned
term category really human invention and what
I found in my own research is that this is
really a very minority position that even
when people for example on college campuses
so the audience that is more likely to get
exposed to the message that race is socially
constructed that even those folks have a hard
time really absorbing it grappling with the
using it as a way of reasoning about racial
difference.
[00:43:55]
So what is what particularly interests me
about the way people's concepts of race intersect
with multiracial ideas that. Dingly enough
a lot of our discourse including popular and
academic a lot of imagery about mixed race
people can encourage any one of these concepts
of race for example the essentialist biological
concept of race can easily be reinforced by
people who think about racial mixture as just
a matter of kind of of having certain degrees
of blood quantum you know you are accorded
this you're half that and that just shores
up people's biological thinking of race in
some instances.
[00:44:36]
But we can also see ways in which language
or discourse around burn multiracial that
he can also enforce more cultural ist interpretations
of what races so there's the popular imagery
right of mixed race people as sort of bridges
between different cultures their peacemakers
their people who are going to bring us to
a more harmonious future that's a strand of
thought about multiracial ity that reinforces
a cultural list concept of race and then finally
you would think that multiracialism would
be a slam dunk for constructivist that it
would be easy for people to point to mixed
race people who are classified differently
in different times and places and national
settings and we know all of that this should
be a clear goal for people who want to make
the point that what races are really artificially
constructed groups but so my along these lines
my first question to the panelists and then
I'll ask them to sit down with me to start
this conversation would be simply to your
mind what kinds of beliefs about racial difference
do you think that contemporary discourse about
multiracial that he tends to reinforce that
if any of those or so would either of you
like to start with that if you have a sense
of what today's discourse about multiracialism
might do to people's beliefs about the nature
of racial difference of self Wow I would say
Really briefly that I tend to think that it
reinforces the essential as.
[00:46:07]
You know kind of understanding a phrase that
you mentioned in your in your response. Principle
because because the way in which measures
talked about is in this kind of. Fractional
and geological understanding of race which
serves to actually naturalistic categories
rather than historic size and I'm right this
is this is the the more of the image of it
that you.
[00:46:33]
Identified so pointedly. Yeah and I really
appreciate you asking that question and get
the thing that's really been at the heart
of what I've been trying to think through
recently I think the only way to understand
some of these questions is to look at the
projectile trajectory of the development of
mixed race studies more broadly and in academic
circles in particular and who's been responsible
for the most up for separatists and popular
voices in critical academic work in multi-racial
already and it's always struck me frankly
the people have been controlling the discourse
have been white and other and I think it's
a really important part of the conversation
it's really what spurred some of my thinking
as someone who identifies as being of two
racialized minority groups myself but I didn't
find myself as being part of that discourse
or multi-racial audience that was part of
my initial kind of contribution but I recognize
now in hindsight how problematic that seemingly
reflexive analysis was and how I've tried
to move beyond that since then but it's part
of this kind of challenging the so-called
pervasive psychopathology that has marked
the experience of multi-racial already and
there's nothing wrong with that on certain
points but I think Garrett is really effectively
told us that we need to think more critically
around why it is we're making this perspective
and why it is that in challenging that so-called
pervasive psychopathology that relentless
so-called negativity that we haven't really
thought about the way that our understanding
is that our academic work has been anti-black
and like I said Anti indigenous in many ways
so we need to move beyond some of these kinds
of analyses in particular for me as a jogger
for I'm really interested in some of the ways
we might look at the particularly problematic
you.
[00:48:00]
Metaphors that have been employed to think
about the experience of multi-racial the SO
in place out of place inside outside having
no place to call home so in asking us to unthink
these kind of Euro centric geographical arrangements
as per the words of Catherine Petrick I really
want us to move beyond some of these problematic
geographical medic for us to imagine a different
way of knowing a different kind of what she
calls unbearable and recognizability a different
way of not being out of the experiences of
a multi-racial sensibly so I'd like to follow
up with the question which ask you a little
bit about how you think we got to this place
to this point that is I'm interested in your
thoughts no we're not historians I'm certainly
not historian.
[00:48:43]
But I would be interested in your thoughts
about how have we come to this contemporary
let's say embrace of multiracial but to the
kind of the prominence of this this discourse
do you have any thoughts about why it is.
Radical today why it is so present why it
is so high profile and often seen in such
glowing terms can you see a little bit more
about how you see it's getting to where we
are today.
[00:49:11]
And that's what I'm worried about you know
for me I think it's just been so. There's
been such an opportunity for certain scholars
people jump on this bandwagon of critical
mixed race studies without thinking about
the political salience of their actions and
their and their academic work more broadly
I guess part of what I'm really concerned
with right now is the way that that in particular
how the neo liberal university has really
jumped on this kind of interest and kind of
commodification as well as this there's been
there's a real appetite for ensuring that
we have a kind of what I'm saying in fact
I've actually been approached to talk about
the idea of a creating a critical mix for
a Studies Department for me this is particularly
problematic and really disturbing because
you have to think about why is this particular
field of school but.
[00:49:58]
Appealing to administrator is more Bodley
in terms of thinking through the ways our
universities are developing programs abroad
for example and how that's appealing for particular
students in the developing world to come and
take courses in critical mixed race studies
department so I'm really interested in those
kind of global flows and thinking about the
commodification and global formations that
are created through these kind of trends national
law forms of educational practice that are
emerging at the university so that's something
for me.
[00:50:24]
So I would follow up if I may with a question
for you and also for Jared more space. Bickley
so for human out you talked about the embrace
on campus of mixed race studies do you think
that there's a popular corollary to this that
is it do you think there's also an interest
an appetite and embrace in the broader public
or popular sphere of thinking about multiracial
and for Jared my question for you would be
again thinking about how we got to this place
that the Genesis arriving at this interest
in multiracial lady in your book and in your
comments I understand them as really kind
of see well let's put it this way putting
it bluntly saying anti-black this is the seed
the genesis of multiracialism.
[00:51:10]
And imperious to know. Whether it's fair to
be so focused on feelings about blackness
or anti blackness when as we know a lot of
the early promote promotion and proponents
of multiracial studies are a recognition of
multiracial people on the census and so far
have been people who don't claim any African
ancestry so at least you know sensibly or
not don't have a dog in the race about saying
they're black or not black so why the focus
on blackness when military Challis might caucus
any other so either answer No that's that's
a good question I would maybe not call the
the cedar Genesis but rather the kind of enabling
unthought condition.
[00:51:55]
Of both the politics and the discourse of
multiracialism and while I think that there
are certain demographic trends which are driving
some of the timing of the emergence of this
iteration of multi-racial discourse because
again it's important to recognize that there's
a long history of multiracial discourse this
is only the the most recent you know sort
of iteration of it and I would say post civil
rights.
[00:52:22]
But that one of the things that I think is
important to track is is that the sort of
relative flew. Ready or rigidity of racial
quota for classification of the United States
since to operate in a sort of inverse proportion
to the level of political repression of black
movements so that what we see in the period
following the Civil War and Reconstruction
is a hardening of racial categories and a
conceptual expansion of the notion of blackness
right this during the historical period that
referred Logan refers to as the major right
of black experience in the U.S. we see you
know a kind of a similar effect at work in
the aftermath of the civil rights and black
power movements sort of active repression
through various forms of of state violence
so I would say that there's there's a political
history where we can sort of in very broad
strokes mark an ebb and flow.
[00:53:20]
Between the the relative fluidity of these
racial categories and and their proliferation
right not only the boundary between blackness
and everything else but the formulation of
other forms of racial classification categorization
which would be neither white nor black and
I think that we could make similar arguments
hemispheric way throughout the Americas as
well.
[00:53:45]
That's really interesting Tara thanks for
that. I guess thinking back to what year it
is asking me about it for me it's really hard
for me not to think about these questions
not thinking about the commodification of
multi racial identities and in a global sphere
and particular thinking about how particularly
racially ambiguous mixed race figures are
employed and co-opted in particular discourses
and just to give up more personal story to
illuminate this point remember when I was
working at the C.B.C. one of the biggest questions
they they asked me when I started as a producer
they said We'd like you to be on camera and
I thought why do you want me on camera and
the question really is embedded in a kind
of well we think you will look like all the
people who are watching seal be able to target
a lot of different ethnic groups in the process
and for me that really illuminates this kind
of the way that the C.B.C. expresses in the
idiology of the nation as a unity of human
difference without talking about how those
differences can be eliminated or discussed
in a kind of political way and so for me that's
a real part of the public is how mixed race
bodies are commodified in very particular
ways to ensure that the status quo is maintained
within organizations institutions like the
Community Broadcasting Corporation.
[00:54:52]
It's very tempting to keep you guys all for
myself I would like to ask you one last question
ever for opening up to the floor because we
have such a great turnout of people here have
a lot of things to bring up with you. But
my last question is about the multifaceted
nature of multi-racial discourse in a sense
up I've been using the word multiracialism
to denote a single thing but really what it
makes more sense to talk about multiple forms
of multiracialism in the sense of discourses
that that differ by national setting that
differ when they take different kinds of racialized
groups as their subject.
[00:55:34]
You know in a sense we have a built in sort
of a US Canadian comparison we might think
further afield to Latin America or elsewhere.
To get divest to the city. Much on sort of
where blackness plays into this a lot of males
respondents were people identified with had
European even ancestry so I'm just curious
to hear thoughts about whether it would be
productive for us the scholars to think about
multi-racial it is kind of a multi-faceted
thing or is there kind of a.
[00:56:03]
Single certain driving force to it that we
can recognise essential and present in a wide
range of choices with every shouting I think
even the questions in advance you can yeah
OK. Well one thing I would say about that
is that what struck me in my in my own research
was to see how.
[00:56:28]
For all of the kind of you know national focus
of the multi-racial movement you know it's
are aimed at Federal at particular federal
agencies for particular political ends. The
broader discourse both political and intellectual
that in that it participates in and contributes
to and draws from who was always interested
in kind of comparative and transnational forms
of of study so there was often a look to Latin
America as counterexample to the United States
there was a look to of all places such as
South Africa as a counter example to the U.S.
And you know even to other parts of Europe
you know to the Pacific Islands etc etc So
there was always a kind of global outlook.
[00:57:14]
In the attempt to formulate how how and why
it is that the promotion of multiracialism
would help to align the United States with
with the world community right and to sort
of in sort of bring what would be a backward
thinking place right into the twentieth or
twenty first century and I in referring to
that the double entendre the title is a sort
of thought about this as a kind of cultural
politics of free trade agreement right and
so you can see this this desire to sort of
capture market share.
[00:57:46]
You know infusing a lot of the discussion
of why it's so pressing and urgent that the
embrace of multiracialism happened now right
in a moment of you know sort of capitalist
economic globalization. Yeah that's such a
thoughtful commentary that and for me I think
it's really about we thinking about where
is it that we want to go and for what reasons
what is really the impetus behind our practices
in critical mixed race studies and thinking
about what the theme was for the most recent
critical mixed race studies in conference
it was mobile mixed race but you know I really
want to question what is Global about it if
you actually look at the book and this is
all due respect to the people put together
this book including myself and it really is
reflective of a kind of global north perspective
if you look at the people who are part of
the project that was really a big you know
it's a question that came up time and time
again the people who were involved in it I
mean any way we can go on and on about a critique
of that particular book even you know I have
I have my issues with how we put that together
but there really wasn't a global about it
in many ways and I think we really need just
because we're looking at mixed race in different
national context doesn't mean that there's
anything critical about it so I think that's
something that's thank you for the soul searching.
[00:58:59]
You know actually before I do at open it up
to the audience if there's anything that either
of you would like to just throw out there
in response to each others we could do that
either now or at work into any you know comments
that come out of this conversation but I just
want to throw that out as a real possibility
because you know I was sitting with both of
you as you listen to the other spoke I heard
you going yes and I saw you nodding your head
so I know that you are our intellectual soul
travelers and all of that so please.
[00:59:29]
Don't stop each other. So let's go and open
up to questions or comments from the audience
first speakers I'm Tom nice to meet you. And
I study film here at N.Y.U. and I was wondering
about your thoughts about the portrayal of
mixed race individuals in popular culture
and how that forms identities especially how
that affects us this is one of the things
that but I think our research has in common
is in the knowledge made of the ways in which
you know.
[01:00:09]
Whether it's a racial measure which is which
is specified or whether it's a racial ambiguity
who's ambiguity is highlighted. There are
various ways in which the sort of proliferation
of looking that way of Spiller's puts it is
is meant to serve a kind of double purpose
in both film and television you need to track
the careers of any number of kind of rising
stars on this on this front but to kind of
speak to what we might call conventional Mitch
markets right after American viewers Tino's
Asian Americans and so forth but also to them
the creation of these larger and larger crossover
audiences right because there's there's such
an emphasis especially I'm thinking of the
Fast and Furious series in particular.
[01:00:55]
And. As a son these these kinds of large production
value right blockbuster films in in which
the story is driven as much by questions of
racial encounter which is to say a highlighting
of difference as it is about a kind of convergence
or combination of racial difference in the
former figure of the racially ambiguous characters
you know in diesel is probably one of the
best examples of that or the rock for that
matter but there are many others that that
we could we could think of it doesn't particularly
in advance of critical interrogation of race
we don't ask Hollywood to do much of that
anyway.
[01:01:35]
You might speak to the Canadian context in
that respect but I think that that's it seems
to be building a commercial interest. Rather
than a political you know sort of reflection
that. You know I think you know what Gerrard
said was right dead on in really pointed in
very valuable but again I think it's about
particularly in my own study a number of the
women that I actually talked to did see them
they were actors and they were trying to gain
roles into their parts and so they acknowledged
personally how this was a definite.
[01:02:06]
Was it ever really positive aspect for them
because they look racially ambiguous it allowed
them to have access to many different film
roles and whether that something that was
good or bad in terms of their own at the cult
responsibilities so they were constantly questioning
their own accountability and questions around
appropriation as well and so to see that kind
of I mean I'm barely loathe to use the term
mixed race agency because I think in some
ways it's a kind of oxymoron and we need to
evaluate that a bit more but I'm really curious
about the way the ANA actually saw an articulation
and and it just juncture between this idea
of accountability around identifying as many
different things and this idea of appropriating
different racial identities to him it's also
important to keep in mind that it's in the
entertainment industries film television theater
where racial casting is it's legal it's right
it's not it's not discriminatory right to
hire on the basis of race or this.
[01:02:55]
If you're a nationality it's one of the few
places where there's a total exclusion right
so when we when we think about who we finally
see on screen or on stage we recognize that
these were not accidents of employment right
but explicit directorial or editorial or production
decisions thank you author MUCH MY NAME IS
a call holiday I am a Ph D.
[01:03:17]
student in linguistics here my dissertation
is on the linguistic performance of men with
one black parent and one white parent no matter
how they identify which is the writing and
I look at their use of African American English
a lot I really have tended American English
in the performing of whatever their chosen
I did my question for you is basically that
in the social sciences I find that a lot of
the literature it's to be promoting sort of
a multi-racial exceptionalism rate so a lot
of it seems to especially in psychology that
anything I'll just but it tends to be like
here multi-racial people are better at identifying
racially ambiguous face this or they can do
things quicker or they're special in some
better way and I'm wondering sort of how we
get around that when our questions are your
call scientific questions not to get in and
of multi-racial exceptionalism rather considering
that some of that can be rooted in anti-black
and ideology what do social scientists do
with the kind of question that we.
[01:04:18]
I mean but it's an important an important
you know caution right that you that you raise
because there is there is certainly in social
science literature have. There's a variant
of it in the humanities as well of this kind
of both a racial exceptionalism the bridge
building that you talked about.
[01:04:34]
In your presentation where there's an assumption
because of inbuilt. Proclivity or or. Or propensity
or or skill set even. Whether it's whether
it's you know culled from experience or you
know it's something you know more inherent.
It's the way it's a word against it I would
think would be with with the kind of description
of the material context in which in your case
speech patterns are developing and emerging.
[01:05:12]
And so it ends maybe identify some of that
literature explicitly and sort of interrogated
head on you know it's been helpful for for
my thinking because. You know your project
sounds really interesting and thanks for sharing
that with us I think it's really important
and I think that it's just so important to
do what you're doing which is challenging
this kind of mixed race exceptionalism and
part of the problem is and I try to illustrate
this in talk really briefly is the methodological
approach through which we've kind of really
allowed for a particular kind of exceptionalism
to take shape and take root in mixed race
studies and a lot that goes back to these
empirical interviews he's one on one interviews
and when you have a mixed race person who's
sitting there in front of you who wants to
talk about their own exceptionalism it allows
for a particular discourse to thrive and it's
often not a problematic well thought through
Just course I mean often they've drunk the
Kool-Aid right and it's how do you begin to
unravel some of the systemic issues that arise
from that particular perspective so I think
if you can manage to you know Jerry just lovely
job in his book of talking about scale and
I'm really interested in thinking about the
relationship between scale and race how do
you race scale how do we scale race I think
that kind of question is really interesting
so I think if you can talk about how these
kinds of Discourses travel the kind of the
global implications beyond the kind of the
nine globalization narrative that comes up
in the book that I just talked about I think
that could be really productive and I think
it sounds like a really great study.
[01:06:28]
I'm proud white and I can't hear it why you.
And I should stay safe from the start that
I teach this course called. Crossing boundaries
and with my apologies to hear. All that you
know thank you. And it's about it's kind of
U.S. history the boundaries of racial gender.
[01:06:55]
Sexual. So it's a way of troubling U.S. history
Well I'm not sure how I want to have to guess
what I want to ask so you'll let me sum it
up that is so I was surprised to hear on the
one hand that's the poorest in this mixed
race that.
[01:07:17]
As high as sort of firming up a kind of essential
is great on the one hand and that and that
critical race studies now seem so natural
I'm not a part of that. That group of. College.
Costs. And you know those so I know I sort
of know some things but.
[01:07:43]
There's some way in which it seems to be what
you do with those concepts that that matters
but not that we don't have to see them to
sell stuff for us this has. Essentially been.
There is there's a kind of reflexive tendency.
To to shore up the instability once it's introduced
and I think I think of it in my own.
[01:08:10]
Classroom teaching as as how when one loses
their balance they reach out for something
to stabilize themselves there's very few people
who when they lose their balance will just
roll right but that's essentially what you
have to do conceptually in order to for for
the for the idea of grace mixture to actually
provide some kind of occasion for thinking
in a deconstructive way about race if the
destabilization leads to a grabbing of the
hand rail right and what I call the kind of
Rage for Order.
[01:08:45]
Then it then it can and usually does work
to shore up those very ideas because then
we start saying grace mixture is the mixture
of what. You know instead of saying that the.
That the theoretical possibility or the abstract
question of race mixture you know raises the
question of the formation of races in the
first place I mean as an idea so I agree with
you that this that this this has this is everything
to do with how all these forms and figures
are used the problem is that there's a kind
of overwhelming tendency to use them in the
great disservice of a kind of conservation
you know I'm really excited here that you're
teaching this course not just because you've
got geographical tendencies that eliminate
some things but I'm really curious about the
way that there's been a kind of a kind of
appetite again for courses and mixed race
studies and it sounds like you're dealing
with a very nuanced way yet a lot of scholars
don't necessarily do that so there's been
all these courses to talk about mixed race
studies and the people whose work they are
reading are other mixed race scholars of the
kind of it that the kind of emphasizing neutrality
that we've been critiquing today and if you're
giving undergraduate students just this kind
of plate of food focused on this kind of analysis
it's not really deeply rooted in any kind
of understanding the stresses ation of a black
studies or a feminist Black Thought for example
and for me that's particularly problematic
and it goes back to the fact that so many
of these courses keep on going on about how
race is a social construction and race changes
in different places at different times it's
simply not enough and we really need to take
it further to develop a different kind of
moving beyond what I call like this kind of
progress narrative that matures to something
bigger and better and you miss Nic hello and
I'm from Seattle I go to the University of
Washington I'm a grad and so I kind of just
have them so.
[01:10:31]
You're saying this. And I keep on like In
twenty fifth year all. Trace of them will
be over and. So my mom she's half white half
black and. White and Black. And. I just noticed
when if you're mixed with blackleg. You can
only be black because like because you're
black you know I can't people don't look at
me and say she's white like I don't get a
move black and so I think that's kind of very
anti blackness comes into as well like you're
just black.
[01:11:12]
You know. And how like and more time I racial
groups it's always like I. You know black
people were mean to me white people were mean
to me there's no like looking out white supremacy
it's just it's like blaming them on a race
people on whatever that is because you know
we're all like we've been enslaved calling
us all these things but acting like ignored
and how.
[01:11:41]
And more so I heard mixed pieces how you know
I identified more as I identify myself as
a black person but if I talk about black issues
with them not space and annoying black girls
I sing it and I'm like how I will troll culturalism
kind of promotes this world one thing and
how one.
[01:12:05]
Ignores the wailing the anti blackness isn't
within Like many different communities non-black
people of color so saying we're one we're
not talking about like how anti blackness
you know makes. US function on Ch'ien whole
and created and sustained just guess what
us little. Guys are sitting Yes sorry we will
get.
[01:12:35]
Next week you. See but sort of spoke about
the use of the comparison with sort of traditionally.
A stick countries but the United States being
used by sort of the mixed race studies movement
as a way to sort of. Bring the U.S. to one
of more type of more of.
[01:12:56]
Parlous ****. Society I just wondering what
you think do you see any benefits and sort
of a march as national compared to the stark
approach to looking to political and historical.
Constructions of mixed race and what can liken
that to for contemporary understanding what's
happening United States as well as the construction
of the current sort of mixed race studies
movement I mean I think you've really eloquently
articulator great is that we need to go and
it's fitting that this is kind of a last point
that we're going to hear and on today because
I think that's exactly where the direction
that we need to take is really think about
this kind of trans historical kind of global
formations and up into this point I don't
think we've really explored that head on and
that's part of why I'm interested in good
eighty because I think that so much of the
cool work that's occurred in global mixer
studies has not addressed issues around and
you date indigeneity more broadly and that
became in context in particular we've seen
that people of mixed race of immigrant minority
mixes that category as being hijacked and
they're being called the new matey which is
a really problematic way of understanding
the experiences of people who are the so-called
old Baity who are of indigenous and European
descent so for me that really gets back to
questions on the temporality is of race the
birth the interest myth has done it as articulated
the way that Indians are seen as kind of Vanishing
a part of the past Europeans are seen as the
ones who are currently contemporary there
and then Asians are kind of you know slowly
there's a part there contemporary but still
not permanent so I think that that is one
direction that we need to go in but that's
the I'm really interested in is thinking about
that and then I'm really curious in the something
I'm curious to ask cared about too is if we
are to move forward is there a possibility
of some kind of coalition politics here I'm
very skeptical I think we have to come to
grips with the way that we've been complicit
in our actions and critical mixed race studies
in particular the institutionalization of
critical mixed race studies but is that even
possible what could that look like yeah I
mean I would I would agree and say that.
[01:14:52]
That that kind of global level analysis is
indispensable. And not only global level analysis
but but actual critical conversations right
so that so that the different articulations
of multiracialism that we see in various regions
and subway agents are in a kind of just dialogue
with one another right learning the lessons
from one another one of the things that as
I mentioned struck me early on was not only
the kind of trans national outlook of a U.S.
based.
[01:15:22]
I won't call it a social movement but a lobbying
campaign. Was that the trend toward a popular
multiracialism in the United States is countervailing
to the trends throughout much of Latin America
where more variants of multiracialism or mystics
I have been have been not only popular but
state policy right for generations now and
very explicitly linked to projects around
post emancipation management's right about
Africa some populations and ongoing colonial
projects regarding indigenous populations
and there there is a history of the critique
of a kind of multi racial politics in most
parts of Latin America that the North American
context could stand to learn a great deal
from and at the same time you see you see
movements for the reclamation only of indigenous
identities but for black identities and the
formation of race based black social movements
and race specific public policy right on on
the North American model so this is a very
interesting sort of countervailing trends
happening hemisphere glee that while multiracial
opponents are heralding the Latin America's
example if they were to look at contemporary
Latin America they would see that that is
exactly you know the opposite of what social
justice activists are looking at.
[01:16:47]
And there are other examples if we were to
look more broadly. I'm so sorry that as my
in my duty as a moderator I have to close
the session now but I want to encourage you
to stay for the reception afterwards and to
ask your questions of our delightful speakers
and of course finally to join me in giving
them a hand for really terrific read.
