NYU Press The New Colored People: The Mixed-Race Movement in America

With a foreword by Richard E. Vander Ross In recent years, dramatic increases in racial intermarriage have given birth to a generation who refuse to be shoehorned into neat, pre-existing racial categories. Energized by a refusal to allow mixed-race people to be rendered invisible, this movement lobbies aggressively to have the category multiracial added to official racial classifications. While applauding the self-awareness and activism at the root of this movement, Jon Michael Spencer questions its ultimate usefulness, deeply concerned that it will unintentionally weaken minority power. Focusing specifically on mixed-race blacks, Spencer argues that the mixed-race movement in the United States would benefit from consideration of how multiracial categories have evolved in South Africa. Americans, he shows us, are deeply uninformed about the tragic consequences of the former white South African government's classification of mixed-race people as Coloured. Spencer maintains that a multiracial category in the U.S. could be equally tragic, not only for blacks but formultiracials themselves. Further, splintering people of color into such classifications of race and mixed race aggravates race relations among society's oppressed. A group that can attain some privilege through a multiracial identity is unlikely to identify with the lesser status group, blacks. It may be that the undoing of racial classification will come not by initiating a new classification, but by our increased recognition that there are millions of people who simply defy easy classification. Review An excellent work of mediation and reconciliation. A book not only of American importance but of global significance.--Hendrik W. van der Merwe, Director-emeritus of the Centre for Intergroup Studies, University of Cape Town Argues boldly and convincingly with valid arguments against the creation of amultiracial classification.-- "Multicultural Review" Jon Michael Spencer has highlighted a new and rising issue on the scene of race relations. . . . Spencer takes a clear, firm, and well-informed position on this complex and vital issue. It is a challenge that the nation will one day be forced to meet.--Joel R. Williamson, author of New People: Miscegenation and Mulattoes in the United States Takes on the difficult task of explaining, from a civil-rights perspective, why government should refuse to recognize a [mixed race] category. . . . Thought-provoking.-- "The New York Times Book Review" From the Back Cover Most Americans remain oblivious of a new racial phenomenon that may radically alter the political landscape of the United States. In recent years, dramatic increases in racial intermarriage have given birth to a generation of mixed-race children whose interracially married parents refuse to allow them to be shoehorned into neat, pre-existing racial categories. The parents, through organizations they have founded or joined, have lobbied aggressively for the category "multiracial" to be added to official racial classifications at the state and federal levels, including the United States census. Since a nonracial society is one of the stated goals of the multiracialists, Spencer suggests that the undoing of racial classification will come not by initiating a new classification - which will only give Americans the impression that mixed-race people can be neatly classified - but by our increased recognition that there are millions of people who simply defy classification. About the Author JON MICHAEL SPENCER is Tyler and Alice Haynes Professor of American Studies and Professor of Music at the University of Richmond.