Left of Black S3:E9 | Racial Passing and the Rise of Multiracialism

Left of Black S3:E9 | Racial Passing and the Rise of Multiracialism

November 12, 2012

For many African Americans, the practice of ‘Passing’—where light-skinned Blacks could pass for White—remains a thing connected to a difficult racial past. In her new book, Clearly Invisible: Racial Passing and the Color of Cultural Identity (Baylor University Press), Marcia Dawkins, a professor in the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California provides a fresh take on the practice arguing that passing in the contemporary moment transcends racial performance.

Dawkins talks about her new book with Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal, via Skype.  Neal is also joined by University of Washington Professor Habiba Ibrahimfor part one of a two-part interview about her new book Troubling the Family: The Promise of Personhood and the Rise of Multiracialism(University of Minnesota Press) in which she links the rise of Multiracialism in the 1990s to the maintenance of traditional gender norms.

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Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

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Episodes of Left of Black are also available for free download in  @ iTunes U

The Legacy of Racial Passing and the Rise of Multiracialism on the November 12th 'Left of Black'

The Legacy of Racial Passing and the Rise of Multiracialism on the November 12^th Left of Black

For many African Americans, the practice of ‘Passing’—where light-skinned Blacks could pass for White—remains a thing connected to a difficult racial past. In her new book, Clearly Invisible: Racial Passing and the Color of Cultural Identity (Baylor University Press), Marcia Dawkins, a professor in the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California provides a fresh take on the practice arguing that passing in the contemporary moment transcends racial performance.

Dawkins talks about her new book with Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal, via Skype.  Neal is also joined by University of Washington Professor Habiba Ibrahimfor part one of a two-part interview about her new book Troubling the Family: The Promise of Personhood and the Rise of Multiracialism(University of Minnesota Press) in which she links the rise of Multiracialism in the 1990s to the maintenance of traditional gender norms.

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Left of Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on the Ustream channel:http://tinyurl.com/LeftofBlack

Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitter conversation with Neal and featured guests while the show airs using hash tags #LeftofBlack or #dukelive.  

Left of Black is recorded and produced at the John Hope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.

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Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack

Follow Mark Anthony Neal on Twitter: @NewBlackMan

Follow Marcia Dawkins on Twitter: @drdawkins09

Elizabeth Warren and the Politics of Racial Passing

Elizabeth Warren and the Politics of Racial Passing

by Marcia Dawkins | HuffPost Black Voices

This year's election season is "the battle of the racial passers." While many have fixated on the authenticity of a multiracial President Obama and a Latino Mitt Romney, questions of racial identity and passing have taken center stage in the Massachusetts Senate race between GOP incumbent Scott Brown and Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren as well.

To put it bluntly, Brown is accusing Warren of "passing," or representing herself as a member of a different racial group than the one to which she belongs. These accusations are to be expected, as I wrote in my new book, Clearly Invisible: Racial Passing and the Color of Cultural Identity, which deals with how people from all walks of life reconcile who they are with who society tells them to be in a society where racial definitions are constantly changing.

Brown resurrected the theme of racial passing last week when his campaign released an ad called "Who Knows," which is a mashup of television reports featuring Warren being grilled about her claim to Native American heritage. "Elizabeth Warren is trying to put questions about her heritage behind her," announces the newscaster in one of the clips.

Brown underscored the ad's message with his opening remarks at last week's debate. He said, Warren "checked the box claiming she is Native American, and clearly she is not."

Translation: Don't be duped. Warren is a deceptive passer. I know this because I can see race. I know a Native American person when I see one and I'm not seeing a Native American person when I see Warren. Therefore, you shouldn't either.

Brown followed up his questions about Warren's racial identity by questioning her "character," asserting that she passed as Native American in order to take advantage of affirmative action. Apparently, Warren benefited from unfair advantage as a racial minority at Harvard Law School. Three messages are being sent here. The first is: If we can't trust Warren's outward appearance then we can't trust her actions either. The second is: Trust me!! I'm not a passer!! I am who I say I am and my appearance confirms it. Remember (a white male) appearance is a trustworthy measure of character. The third is: White (male) people are now members of a disadvantaged racial group because of programs like affirmative action.

Warren responded via a statementprovided to the Boston Globe after the debate. "Growing up," Warren explained, "my mother and my grandparents and my aunts and uncles often talked about our family's Native American heritage. As a kid, I never thought to ask them for documentation - what kid would? - but that doesn't change the fact that it is a part of who I am and part of my family heritage."

Some of Brown's campaign staffers weren't convinced by the candidate's testimony, which could explain why they took to the streets making Native American "war whoops" and doing the "tomahawk chop" at a campaign rally in Boston over the weekend.

When the votes are counted this November, Warren's racial identity will be less significant than the fact that questions about her identity persist as means of disqualification. Such questions demonstrate the ongoing problems of racial identification in the twenty-first century.

But, if we're willing to get past the noise and listen to Warren, we may also find some answers. Answers to questions like: What are you? Who is most qualified to respond? What evidence can be considered? Warren's identity also provides a new answer to the old question about the definition of race. Is race real? Is it biological? Is it sociological? For Warren the answer is complicated. Race is clearly invisible -- a fact of life that may also be, to some degree, a fiction.

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Marcia Alesan Dawkins, Ph. D.is Clinical Assistant Professor, USC Annenberg School of Communication. Dawkins is the author of Clearly Invisible: Racial Passing and the Color of Cultural Identity (Baylor University Press, August 2012) and Eminem: The Real Slim Shady (Praeger Press, 2013). She writes on race, diversity, media, religion, and politics for a variety of high-profile publications, including The Huffington Post, Truthdig, The Root and Cultural Weekly.

Follow Marcia Dawkins on Twitter: www.twitter.com/drdawkins09

Book Trailer | Clearly Invisible: Racial Passing and the Color of Racial Identity by Marcia Alesan Dawkins

Marcia Dawkins

 

Everybody passes. Not just racial minorities. As Marcia Alesan Dawkins explains, passing has been occurring for millennia, since intercultural and interracial contact began. And with this profound new study, she explores its old limits and new possibilities: from women passing as men and able-bodied persons passing as disabled to black classics professors passing as Jewish and white supremacists passing as white.

Already hailed as a pioneering work in the study of race and culture, Clearly Invisible offers powerful testimony to the fact that individual identities are never fully self-determined—and that race is far more a matter of sociology than of biology.