Week One Presentation:

In this week's presentation, we want to discuss a few issues that impacted folks of mixed race in the late 19th and early 20th century. Most of the material is inspired by Cindy Nakashima's article, "Invisible Monster" and Douglas J. Smith's "The Campaign for Racial Purity and the Erosion of Paternalism in Virginia, 1922-1930: 'Nominally White, Biologically Mixed, and Legally Negro.'" We also included reference some pieces from our Mixed Race Box, specifically Arwin D. Smallwood's "Race Mixings: A Brief History with Maps" and the two of clubs and ace of spades.

During the time period of first two articles, we get some of the history in America, public opinion as white elite paternalism made life for people of color, American Indiana and African American and their future generations, harder. Most have heard about the segregation between the black and white folks in the past. These articles go more in depth by speaking to some of the legislation, actions by some of the most influential workers in the movement that further oppressed the people of color, including those that are mixed race, and legal definitions made throughout those years on their racial identity.

American Indians and African Americans were once classified as black, not allowed to marry people that are white. and even those that have already been born with someone of color in their ancestry were treated as fully color. They were looked at as hybrid degenerates, looked down upon as biologically inferior when race itself is just a socially constructed concept used to aid in oppression. The white paternalists' main goals were to attack multi-racialist and intermarriage in order to push and keep people of color as second-class citizens.