{"id":8144,"date":"2013-08-02T16:28:12","date_gmt":"2013-08-02T21:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/news\/?p=8144"},"modified":"2015-11-12T08:20:48","modified_gmt":"2015-11-12T14:20:48","slug":"mixed-races-mixed-messages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/news\/mixed-races-mixed-messages\/","title":{"rendered":"Mixed races, mixed messages"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Greg Carter, assistant professor of history, with his book. (Photo by Troye Fox<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A recent Cheerios commercial featuring a white mother, black father and their daughter attracted a few nasty comments, followed by a huge outpouring of support, with 95 percent of viewers \u201cliking\u201d the commercial.<\/p>\n

The recent advertisement is just one reflection of America\u2019s long history of strong feelings about interracial relationships.<\/p>\n

\"\"Greg Carter, an assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, traces the history of how such relationships have been both demonized and praised in \u201cThe United States of the United Races: A Utopian History of Racial Mixing.\u201d \u00a0The book looks at the ways Americans have thought about racial mixing from Colonial times to the present.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been a lot of attention, and an increase in visibility of people of mixed racial heritage,\u201d says Carter. President Barack Obama and golf champion Tiger Woods, in particular, have raised the profile of people of mixed race in recent years. In addition, the Census Bureau and other government agencies have broadened the number of choices people have in filling out the \u201crace\u201d box on federal forms.<\/p>\n

An optimistic focus<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Abolitionist Wendell Phillips wrote about his vision of America as a place where fear of racial mixing will become an \u201coddity of the past.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Carter\u2019s book focuses on the optimistic tradition of racial mixing in the United States, looking at those who saw a racially mixed America as a better America. It\u2019s a topic he originally became interested in and explored in his dissertation at the University of Texas, where he earned a doctorate in American Studies. He now teaches and writes about the issues around mixed race and racial identity.<\/p>\n

His students are often surprised at the idea that racial mixing wasn\u2019t always viewed negatively in the past, says Carter.\u00a0 \u201cThey often think of the past as a uniformly racist and awful period, but it was much more complex than that,\u201d says Carter.<\/p>\n

\u201cContemporary fascination with racially mixed figures has its historical roots in how past Americans have imagined what radical abolitionist Wendell Phillips first called,\u00a0 \u2018The United States of the United Races,\u2019\u201d Carter writes in explanation of the book\u2019s title.<\/p>\n

In the book, Carter looks at various historical figures, like Phillips, who took a positive view of racial mingling and saw it as a means to \u201ccreate a new people, to bring equality to all, and to fulfill a uniquely American destiny.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also traces the impact of key Supreme Court decisions, the various ways the public and governments have attempted to define and categorize individuals by their racial mixture, and the impact of historical events in shaping views of racial mixing.<\/p>\n

The positive few<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Portrait of the \u201cW\u201d family, which included a \u201cmedium colored\u201d mother and her children with a white man. A first cousin is also part of the portrait. The photo was part of a 1913 study that attempted to link skin color to \u201cdegeneracy.\u201d Click image for a larger view.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From the very beginning, even when sentiment was strongly against mixed relationships, a few influential individuals took a more positive view, says Carter.<\/p>\n

While Founding Father Thomas Jefferson warned against whites mixing with blacks and backed state laws against such relationships, his private secretary William Short proposed recognizing mixed offspring, transitioning slaves toward tenant farming and offering universal citizenship.<\/p>\n

In the 1780s, J. Hector St. John de Cr\u00e8vecouer, author of the popular \u201cLetters from an American Farmer,\u201d wrote about America\u2019s mixture of peoples as one of its strengths, according to Carter.<\/p>\n

Before and after the Civil War, Phillips tackled the controversial topic of racial mixing head-on. His fellow abolitionists were content to free slaves, but only the most radical of them argued for emancipation, full citizenship and the right to marry whites.<\/p>\n

In the early 1900s, playwright Israel Zangwill tried to open a discussion of intermarriage in his play \u201cThe \u201cMelting Pot,\u201d but public pressure forced him to remove the play\u2019s Asian and black characters.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\u201cA Study of Some Negro-White Families in the U.S.,\u201d by Caroline Bond Day, traced the genealogical chart of an early interracial family. Click image for a larger view. (From the Peabody Museum. )<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By the end of World War II, however, immigration, the Civil Rights Movement and America\u2019s increasing global role had brought more white Americans into contact with other races and cultures, resulting in growing acceptance of racial mixing. Revulsion toward Hitler\u2019s policies of white supremacy also impacted Americans, says Carter. \u201cWe required ourselves to be better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1967, the Supreme Court in the case of Loving v. Virginia finally deemed remaining state laws forbidding interracial marriage unconstitutional. However, the \u201960s and \u201970s also gave rise to a number of movements \u2013 black and Latino power, for example \u2013 that emphasized the benefits of racial stabilization, casting aspersions on mixing.<\/p>\n

A matter of choice<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today, identity among those of mixed race often remains a matter of choice, says Carter. During his 2008 campaign, for example, Barack Obama proudly proclaimed himself the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya. \u201cThe campaign was using his mother and father as part of his story, and a progressive view of racial mixing was part of that,\u201d says Carter.<\/p>\n

Yet, when Obama filled out his census form in 2010, he identified himself as black.\u00a0 Like many racially mixed people, says Carter, Obama makes different choices in how he wants to identify himself at various times and in different situations. \u201cIdentity can change depending on the context.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the public now views racial mixing more positively, that alone is not a sign that racism is a thing of the past, Carter says. \u00a0\u201cWe are reaching for a state of more equity and racial progress for minorities,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

However, he argues in the conclusion of his book, attitudes toward racial mixing are just part of America\u2019s shift in the understanding of race.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can find figurative power in racial mixing, but as an end it itself, it is insufficient. Mixed race can disrupt the status quo, but not on its own.\u201d To achieve that kind of change, Carter says,” We have to do work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new book by UWM historian Greg Carter examines the way interracial relationships have been both demonized and praised in the U.S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":835,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[175],"tags":[],"section":[],"display_categories":[],"related-coverage":[],"uwmnews-feed":[],"class_list":["post-8144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research"],"yoast_head":"\nMixed races, mixed messages<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A new book by UWM historian Greg Carter examines the way interracial relationships have been both demonized and praised in the U.S.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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