“I wish I didn’t look so White”: examining contested racial identities in second-generation Black–White Multiracials

ABSTRACT

Multiracials are one of the fastest growing populations in the United States. However, we are still learning how the children of Multiracial individuals understand their racial identity. I interviewed 30 “second-generation” Black–White Multiracials, who have one Black–White parent and one White parent, on the meanings they assign to racial categories, phenotypes, and their racial identity. Many cite reflected appraisals as non-Black for why they do not identify as Black, but orientation toward Blackness differs from those who identify as Multiracial. Between these two groups of Multiracials, I find distinctive responses to racial contestation consistent with differing stigmatization of racial groups, salience of racial identity, and identification as a person of colour. These findings indicate differing responses to similarly reflected appraisals and highlight the need to investigate Multiracials of multiple generational statuses to understand the varying meanings of a Multiracial identity to Multiracials.

KEYWORDS:

• Multiracial
• racial identity
• reflected appraisals
• racial minorities
• group membership
• contested identity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this paper, I capitalize Black, White, Multiracial, Blackness, Whiteness and Multiraciality as racial domains to linguistically assert their social constructedness.

2 I use “Multiracial(s)” in this article to refer to those with ancestry of more than one politically invented racial group. I note the instances where I am speaking of “Multiracial” as an identity choice.

3 While quadroon has not been standard public categorization in over a century (Higginbotham & Kopytoff 2000), three respondents use it as their preferred identification (including one who has it as a tattoo).

4 The concept and use of the term of passing assumes there are discreet biological racial categories with distinct phenotypic characteristics. I intentionally do not use the term White-passing in this paper, though I note when respondents do. Instead I use “White-assumed” to decenter Whiteness as a preferred racial group status and more accurately reflect the social reality of the interaction. This study shows Whiteness cannot be constructed as a preferred racial category for Multiracials. Furthermore, White-assumed correctly places the onus on the outsider who is assuming the racial category of the Multiracial, and does not negate the lived experience of the Multiracial person as non-White.

5 Honorary White references Bonilla-Silva’s (2004) intermediary group “Honorary White” who occupy a status in between Whites and the collective Black. This is the group he suggests light-skin Multiracials will fall into.

6 Hypodescent applies to identifying with whichever race is deemed of lower status. As the respondents in this category show, they do not believe they either could or should identify exclusively as Black; therefore, Multiracial is the lowest status group they perceive access to. They maintain an orientation to their Black identity.