I didn’t expect to find the specter of the mixed-race person making an appearance in Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision that upheld Michigan’s ban on affirmative action. But there it was. In Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the plurality, cast doubt upon the court’s capacity to deliberate over race cases — and mixed-raced people were said to be the culprits.
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When talking diversity at colleges and universities, the numbers count. Still, when it comes to mixed-race students, too often they do not count at all. This is a missed opportunity. University leaders rely upon statistics for a measure of where students of color stand on campus. Data on those who self-identify as Black, Latino and Native American are said to reflect how well diversity goals are being met. What about those who check more than one box? Their numbers and their contributions to campus diversity are largely overlooked.
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My latest contribution to Al Brophy’s Faculty Lounge legal history trivia. I visited this place in connection with my family memoir. Today it is surrounded by factories and warehouses, but in the nineteenth century it was at the heart of the Reconstruction-era settlement of Warnersville. Take a look here.
Over at Claire Potter’s Tenured Radical blog, we had an interesting exchange about women in the history of Reconstruction. Potter chided Eric Foner for eliding the history of women in his review of Douglas R. Egerton’s new Wars of Reconstruction. Potter then asked what the history of Reconstruction might look like if we remembered the women. I replied:
“One place to start is with the African American women who worked in coalition with Stanton, et al. in those years. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was among them and she would endorse the political compromises of the 14th and 15th amendments, though not without lament. More generally, mid-nineteenth century black women activists would not endorse the view that the 14th amendment operated to “remake black families, and black masculinity, in the patriarchal model established and defended by white men.” To the contrary, black women took inspiration and insight from the debates generated by the Reconstruction amendments. In their community institutions, especially African American churches, they waged important battles for the rights of women using the rhetoric of politics. And sometimes they did so in coalition with their male counterparts. Yes, let’s remember the women.”
From there thread got very interesting. Read more here.
When the census listed Negro as a race option in 2010, a controversy erupted. My students at the University of Michigan were eager to denounce the term’s use: “Negro? It has to go!” To their ears, “Negro” was derogatory, too close in tone to the other, more infamous n-word. I played devil’s advocate, to test their thinking: “But some black elders still self-identify as Negroes.” “It’s preferable to its predecessor, colored.”
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My winter 2010 seminar began the way I start every class. I made introductory remarks about themes and requirements for my course on the history of race, law and marriage in the United States. “Now,” I prompted, “let’s go around. Tell us about yourself and why you chose this course.” This introduction was routine. But what I heard was anything but the norm: “My mother is black and my father is white.” “I’m in an interracial relationship.” Ordinarily, I am silent, listening and taking notes. But by the time I heard a third student say “I am mixed-race, from a mixed race family,” I had set down my notebook and was perched at the edge of my seat.
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Thanks to Al Brophy for blogging about my recent articles over at the Faculty Lounge blog. What better way to show my appreciation than to offer up a contribution to Al’s courthouse trivia series. This site awkwardly juxtaposes the history of slavery (as in State v. Mann and the life of Harriet Jacobs) alongside the veneration of the “founders.” Do you know it?
I love Al Brophy’s “courthouse trivia” features at the Faculty Lounge blog. This week, Al invited me to post a quiz of my own. I visited this courthouse in spring 2013, and am still thinking about its juxtaposition of two monuments: one to the Talbott Boys, and the other to Frederick Douglass. See if you can identify the place here.
“Through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall.” With this phrase, Barack Obama rewrote our national narrative of freedom and equality. That story, the president urged, runs from mid-nineteenth century struggles for the rights of women, into the modern civil rights campaign for racial justice and on through the 21st century battles for the rights of LGBTQ Americans. The president only hinted at the strong relationship between these movements. What President Obama termed our quest for “tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice” has always been shaped by intersecting interests and experiences.
Read more here.
