“Breaking Bad” in Black and White: What Ideological Deviance Can Tell Us about the Construction of “Authentic” Racial Identities

Polity ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tehama Lopez Bunyasi ◽  
Leah Wright Rigueur
2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 973-977 ◽  
Author(s):  
Destiny Peery ◽  
Galen V. Bodenhausen

Historically, the principle of hypodescent specified that individuals with one Black and one White parent should be considered Black. Two experiments examined whether categorizations of racially ambiguous targets reflect this principle. Participants studied ambiguous target faces accompanied by profiles that either did or did not identify the targets as having multiracial backgrounds (biological, cultural, or both biological and cultural). Participants then completed a speeded dualcategorization task requiring Black/not Black and White/not White judgments (Experiments 1 and 2) and deliberate categorization tasks requiring participants to describe the races (Experiment 2) of target faces. When a target was known to have mixed-race ancestry, participants were more likely to rapidly categorize the target as Black (and not White); however, the same cues also increased deliberate categorizations of the targets as “multiracial.” These findings suggest that hypodescent still characterizes the automatic racial categorizations of many perceivers, although more complex racial identities may be acknowledged upon more thoughtful reflection.


Ethnicities ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Paul

This article critically examines #AllLivesMatter, which emerged as a rebuttal to #BlackLivesMatter, arguing, in spite of its universalist pretentions, that it represents a cloaked identitarian politics which through a hegemonic narrative (re)presents itself as a radically inclusionary counter-narrative. I argue All Lives Matter exemplifies an anti-identity identity politics by invoking rhetoric in opposition to racial identities while smuggling in a somewhat elastic ‘postracial’ neoliberal subject as the foundational identity around which this new mobilisation is organised. The article outlines a definition for anti-identity identity politics and uses this as a lens for analysing All Lives Matter in order to interrogate this keyword.


Author(s):  
Christopher Curry

In the introduction, Christopher Curry provides a theoretical foundation for the thematic chapters that follow. He discusses the notion that the Bahamas represents a unique geo-political space settled by loyalists at the end of the American Revolution. Racial identities inscribed in law, customs, and practices became the source of friction between black and white loyalists in the Bahamas. Such friction in fact was initiated during the course of the Revolutionary War but was amplified in the Bahamas due to competing aspirations. One group was seeking greater freedom under the protection of British promises and proclamations; and the other, already possessing liberty, was attempting to gain economic advantages as potential slave-owning planters. Curry argues that black loyalists were cultural carriers of a revolutionary movement reflected in their attitudes to work, demands for freedom, and their efforts to establish important religious and social institutions.


Author(s):  
Naomi Zack

American racial identities change over time and place, as all social constructions do, but they are also stable in historical and generational ways, because people in the same family are usually the same race. This is not the case for mixed race, particularly mixed black and white (MBW). People in mixed-race families belong to different races. Motives from self-interest, to lack of racial solidarity, to a sense of justice could motivate choosing mixed-race identity. Passing for the race others think one is not, and conforming or not, to norms for racial identities raise social and moral questions for members of the unconstructed racial group of mixed-race Americans.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (37) ◽  
pp. 15-36
Author(s):  
Pascale Aebischer ◽  
Victoria Sparey

This article examines the construction of national and racial identities within Ben Jonson’s and Inigo Jones’s Masque of Blackness against the backdrop of King James’ investment in creating a ‘British’ union at the start of his reign. The article re-examines the blackface performance of the Queen and her ladies in the contexts of the Queen’s and Inigo Jones’ European connections, the Queen’s reputation as ‘wilful’, and her pregnant body’s ability to evoke widespread cultural beliefs about the maternal imagination’s power to determine a child’s racial make-up. We argue that the masque’s striking use of blue-face along with black and white-face reveals a deep investment in Britain’s ancient customs which stands in tension with Blackness’ showcasing of foreign bodies, technologies, and cultural reference points. By demonstrating the significance of understanding Queen Anna’s pregnancy and her ‘wilful’ personality within the context of early modern humoral theory, moreover, we develop existing discussions of the humoral theory that underpins the masque’s representation of racial identities. We suggest that the Queen’s pregnant performance in blackface, by reminding the viewer that her maternal mind could ‘will’ the racial identity of royal progeny into being, had the power to unsettle King James I’s white male nationalist supremacy in the very act of celebrating it before their new English court and its foreign guests.


2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 8-32
Author(s):  
Stephanie L. Young

In this autoethnography, I offer a pedagogy of racial visibility. Drawing on my embodied experiences both in and outside of the classroom, I explore how I engage in dialogue with my students about theoretical and critical approaches toward understanding rhetorics of race in the United States. Specifically, as an embodied storyteller, I reflect upon my personal stories as a biracial Korean American woman and investigate the instabilities of racial identities, the taken-for-granted racial understandings, and racism and white privilege in America.


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