{"id":9,"date":"2023-11-30T05:08:44","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T05:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ascjcapstone.com\/fall-2023\/kgoldbac\/?page_id=9"},"modified":"2023-12-12T03:39:23","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T03:39:23","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ascjcapstone.com\/fall-2023\/kgoldbac\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Part One: The Biracial Question.<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Above photo: a collage of the writer and her mixed family in the early 2000s.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sat poised in my seat in front of the camera, eagerly waiting to take my college graduation photos, when the photographer readying the shot asked me the age-old question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat ethnicity are you?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Usually, I receive that question in the form of \u201cWhat are you?\u201d or something equally dehumanizing \u2013 the word \u201cethnicity\u201d was a step up from that, at least. I rattled off the answer with all the enthusiasm I could muster after 21 years of the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy mother is Black, and my dad is white.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reaction I\u2019m used to is almost cartoonish expressions of disbelief. I don\u2019t look like their idea of a Black and white biracial American. Are they expecting a green-eyed, blonde-haired girl with caramel skin? Instead, they are met with a tan, dark-haired woman with mixed features. One who doesn\u2019t \u201clook\u201d white, but doesn\u2019t necessarily \u201clook\u201d Black either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of the usual denial (as if I would lie about my racial background to a stranger poking into my personal identity for the sake of assuring their own nosiness), the photographer started to wax poetic about how beautiful biracial people are. How especially interesting we look. How interesting we are to photograph. How interestingly exotic our features are in magazine spreads.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve had a lot of weird things said to me about my ethnicity, but I had never been fetishized to my face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biraciality and fetishization go hand in hand. Today, prominent white families like the Kardashians have children with Black men; their daughters face scrutiny of their appearances at a higher rate than their white counterparts. Khloe Kardashian\u2019s daughter, True, has faced anti-Black sentiment for her darker skin and Black features \u2013 even as an infant. If not ambiguously exotic, or white-passing, your biracial identity is the subject of endless criticism and fascination. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facebook pages dedicated to posting photos of biracial babies and toddlers gather hundreds of thousands of likes and followers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The comments range from fawning over the children to racist epithets. \u201cShe is ABSOLUTLEY [sic] FIERCE,\u201d repeated one commenter under several posts of little brown girls with curly blonde hair and green eyes. \u201cCan I have some of that beautiful hair?\u201d asked another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under a different post, a commenter says \u201cWhat is that?\u201d Another adds an animated GIF of a kiss<\/a> between actor Charlton Heston and a monkey scientist portrayed by Kim Hunter in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes<\/em>. The implication there is clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A collage of comments from the Mixed Race Babies Facebook <\/em>profile<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While the invention of social media has allowed racist internet trolls and appearance-obsessed parents-to-be access to endless photographs of biracial children to examine and idealize, the fetishization of multiraciality has roots that run throughout the entire country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reality is that the history of Black biraciality goes back to slavery and rape. The condition of slavery allowed for enslaved women to be systematically assaulted by white slave masters. The babies produced from these mixed race copulations were called \u201cmulatto.\u201d The terms quadroon and octoroon were also utilized to describe someone with more white \u201cblood\u201d than Black. In the year 1850, the U.S. census not only started counting Black people, but also introduced the category \u201cM\u201d for mulatto. A new problem emerged from this, as Census counters marked anyone mulatto who they considered \u201cracially ambiguous,\u201d specifically not visibly Black or white, such as Native Americans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many abolitionists in the antebellum South asserted the existence of biracial people was directly connected to one of the \u201cfundamental moral issues\u201d of slavery, according to historian Robert Brent Toplin in \u201cBetween Black and White: Attitudes Toward Southern Mulattoes.\u201d The idea of white slave masters being tempted into infidelity and sexual promiscuity by enslaved women was the cause, they posited; thus, he wrote, if slavery were abolished, the production of \u201cmulattos\u201d would end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consequently, it did not. The population of multiracial people in America has grown by almost 9.6 million since 1850, according to U.S. Census data. As the population grew undeniably, society began to discuss biracial existence beyond the numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Growth of Multiracial Identity in America since 1850. In 1850, the seventh census of the U.S. was conducted. This was the first year in which \u201cmulatto\u201d was a category. Four decades later, the category was expanded to include \u201cquadroon\u201d and \u201coctoroon\u201d respectively before it was reverted to just \u201cNegro\u201d in decades following. In 2000, the category \u201ctwo or more races\u201d was added. Researchers project that 1 in 5 Americans may identify as multiracial by the year 2050.* Data from U.S. Census (1850, 1890, 2000 and 2022). *America\u2019s Changing Color Lines, Jennifer Lee and Frank D. Bean (2004)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Most of the first films and books that delved into biracial identity in women revolved around what the Jim Crow Museum describes as \u201cpersonal pathologies;\u201d the \u201ctragic mulatto myth\u201d perpetrated by early filmmakers and writers involved themes of extreme self-hatred and sexual promiscuity. The tragic mulatto trope revolved around typically white-passing biracial protagonists who managed to distance themselves from their Blackness at a cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“He said, \u2018Yeah, but from where in Africa?\u2019 And I was like, \u2018I don’t know.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\nRachel Dawson<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The cost usually was despair, self-loathing and eventually having their identity discovered by their white peers. While the trope is oversaturated, grappling with cultural and ethnic identity stripped away by the shared trauma of slavery is indeed something Black and Black biracial Americans alike must deal with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brenda Arjona is a professor of anthropology at the University of San Francisco. According to her research, the way marginalized peoples today view their identities is tied to settler colonialism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[Anthropologists] pushed theories like linear evolution, saying that human beings evolved from savagery to be \u2018civilized\u2019 \u2013 civilized being white, European, male,\u201d Arjona said. \u201cAt the same time, the colonizers used those same academic theories to say certain people are less than human, so it\u2019s okay if we just wipe them out and take the last right. The way that that affects identity is because our identities are tied to our culture \u2013 it\u2019s not just something that\u2019s static. Identities are going to keep evolving, not just culturally, but individually.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel Dawson is a business student at the University of Southern California currently studying in Milan. Her father is Black, and her mother is Dutch-Indonesian. During her time traveling across Europe and Africa, Dawson said one of the biggest questions she faces is the timeless \u201cWhat are you?\u201d But just \u201cBlack\u201d isn\u2019t an acceptable answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t understand \u2018African-American,\u2019 because for them, [the idea of] slavery is not a thing like it is in the U.S,\u201d Dawson said. \u201cI remember one night I was talking to this guy from France and he was asking me where I was from. \u2018Oh, I\u2019m African-American, Dutch-Indonesian.\u2019 He said, \u2018Yeah, but from where in Africa?\u2019 And I was like, \u2018I don\u2019t know.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to figure out the answer to the European version of \u201cWhat are you,\u201d Dawson used DNA testing service 23andme to ascertain her exact ethnicity. Although she discovered that her father\u2019s side could trace their roots to Nigeria and other various African countries, it was not as satisfying a find as she\u2019d expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[My Nigerian identity] felt like a small percentage,\u201d Dawson said. \u201cI never grew up with it culturally, so sometimes it feels a little bit like \u2013 not like I\u2019m faking it \u2013 but if you are told on a piece of paper that you are something and then that\u2019s your only tie to that heritage, it\u2019s just not the same.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The field of Black biracial media is oversaturated with art about not knowing how to define one\u2019s identity. Why is the \u201cstuck between two worlds\u201d trope so deeply entrenched in the biracial community?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part Two: Identifying as Black American in a world that steals, yet denies, its culture.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The answer is sociological. Humans are social creatures. We all crave human connection \u2013 connection by blood, by hobbies, by race and ethnicity. Humans have an almost supernatural urge to divide, to separate, to organize ourselves into neat little boxes. But what happens when the boxes are not-so-neat? Where do we go from here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cBlackness is multiplicitous. It’s multifarious. There are many different ways of being Black.”<\/p>\nJonathan G\u00f3mez<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Rachael Somers, a fourth year student majoring in philosophy, politics and economics at the University of Southern California, says their identity as a non-racially ambiguous Black biracial individual results in a discrimination beyond desirability politics<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“When I think of the discrimination that I face, I really see it as anti-Blackness rather than about my mixed identity. Being taught to value my whiteness rather than me as a person, or my Blackness,” Somers said. “The hardest part [of being Black or biracial] is the internalized anti-blackness in America in general. And I think that’s one of the privileges of being mixed, is just not necessarily really being confronted with the fact that hatred is really powerful, but internalized hatred is like a whole beast of its own. Internalization of these feelings is why systematic oppression so effective.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somers was able to find a stronger sense of community within her Black family, friends and peers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I just feel really attached to my blackness. I’m grateful for the community. My mom is incredibly Christian [..] and we went to church in Detroit. I live in Ypsilanti [Michigan],” Somers said. “Because of that, every single Sunday, I would go to my Aunt Roc’s house where my Aunt Ruth, Aunt Janice and my cousin lived. I would be there every weekend; just being close to my own family is definitely a major place where I got to learn about my culture.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jonathan G\u00f3mez is a professor at the University of Southern California and musicologist studying music of Black Americans as well as that of the broader African diaspora. G\u00f3mez says the question of family lineage has in many ways caused the Black American identity to become its own culture, distinct from other ethnic identities in its own right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEnslavement denied Black people the right to familial histories in many cases. And while there are some black people who are able to trace their families back pretty far, not everyone has that opportunity or the ability to do that,\u201d G\u00f3mez said. \u201cIt does affect culture. Not being able to trace back [lineage] due to the destruction of the family unit [during] slavery that split up families.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Music is one way in which Black culture first emerged as a global influence. According to G\u00f3mez, much of the music produced by the Black community is used not only to speak out politically, but to uplift and celebrate Black joy and achievement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1920s and 1930s especially, the blues emerged as a music genre; it played a critical role in painting vignettes of the black experience beyond religious spirituals, which were associated with enslavement<\/a>. Jazz musicians continued this trend in the mid-20th century, with artists like Max Roach and Nina Simone composing or writing songs targeted at the political and social issues of their day. While music served as a platform for political expression, it also celebrated black joy and interpersonal connections, illustrating the many sides of the Black experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Music has been a way for Black people to express political [views], but also something that gets overlooked – Black joy, and celebration, and just Black people relating to one another. While performances were political, they also could be about other things as well,” G\u00f3mez said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black Americans are not a monolith. Blackness is inherently anti-Essentialist; there is not a list of dress, music, dance or food necessary to indulge in to be considered \u201cBlack.\u201d Much is decidedly shared, but the beauty of Black culture in America lies in its variance; someone in the South has cultural fixtures that are different from those of someone on the West Coast that are different from the East Coast and so on. As such, the biracial\/\u201dmixed\u201d identity is one thread in the ever-expanding fabric of the Black American culture.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBlackness is multiplicitous. It’s multifarious. There are many different ways of being Black,\u201d G\u00f3mez said. \u201cMy point, and that of many other people in Black studies is not that Blackness means one thing, but that we need to take it seriously \u2013 that it does have meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below, listen to excerpts from a conversation with Professor Jonathan G\u00f3mez on Black narratives in music.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-9","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascjcapstone.com\/fall-2023\/kgoldbac\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascjcapstone.com\/fall-2023\/kgoldbac\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascjcapstone.com\/fall-2023\/kgoldbac\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascjcapstone.com\/fall-2023\/kgoldbac\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascjcapstone.com\/fall-2023\/kgoldbac\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/ascjcapstone.com\/fall-2023\/kgoldbac\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96,"href":"https:\/\/ascjcapstone.com\/fall-2023\/kgoldbac\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9\/revisions\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascjcapstone.com\/fall-2023\/kgoldbac\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}