Jennifer Patrice Sims’ article “Beautiful Stereotypes: The Relationship Between Physical Attractiveness and Mixed Race Identity” presents empirical evidence of mixed race individuals standing atop of the contemporary beauty hierarchy. This sociological study, conducted from 1994-2002, uses public data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (ADD Health) to assess beauty ratings of various biracial groups: white/black, white/Native American, white/Asian, Black/Native American, Black/Asian, and Native American/Asian. The sociologist concludes that different physical characteristics for different biracial groups correlate with perceived societal beauty. For mixed race black individuals, beauty is more dependent on skin color; whereas, for mixed Asian individuals, beauty is more dependent on the shape of eyes and physical stature (height, body build).
One point that I found particularly insightful was that many mixed race individuals found “race” as a non-applicable social identifier. In other words, many mixed race individuals, primarily white mixed race individuals, believed that they “transcended” race and that race was not a central marker of their identity. Sims’ emphasis on the fact that mostly white mixed race individuals experience this “racial transcendence” demonstrates how white privilege affords one more agency in code-switching, or claiming different parts of their racial identity in different social environments. Overall, I found this article to be very insightful but the research method to be rather extraneous. I do not necessarily believe that statistical methods needed to be used to prove that there is, indeed, a Biracial Beauty Stereotype. The scientific method, in my opinion, is tedious and can sometimes be self-explanatory in certain case studies. For this specific study, I think participant testimony and persuasive writing about their testimony would have been sufficient to prove that a Biracial Beauty Stereotype exists.
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