From Slave to Free

In early September of 1801, Sarah and Isaac’s British grandfather, George Gill, died and left his multiracial children, including Sarah and Isaac’s mother, the bulk of his estate and a house in which to live. Slave owners were notoriously mercurial, and whites rarely publicly recognized—let alone left legacies—to their mixed-race kin. Yet George Gill passed over his white relatives in favor of Sarah’s family. Sarah and Isaac’s mother—George’s “beloved Daughter”—along with most of their other multiracial kin were still enslaved by the Lopezes. Yet they had money and a house. By the time the family inherited that house, Sarah and Isaac were free. Their father, Abraham Rodrigues Brandon, bought his children from the Lopez family and paid their manumission fees. These two acts—freedom and inheritance—would change the fortunes not only of Sarah and Isaac but also of most of their extended kin.

“When You Take This Jump and Cross Racial Boundaries”: Parents’ Experiences of Raising Multiracial Children

This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of eight parents of multiracial children. Primary themes emerged from the analysis include (a) fostering a child’s multiple heritages, (b) nurturing the whole person, (c) race-conscious parenting, (d) having open communication, (e) learning on the job, and (f) a multidimensional approach to self-care. The findings revealed that parents valued open communication with their children and made efforts to not only connect them with their racial and cultural roots but also raise their children to learn about people whose cultural and racial backgrounds differ from them. Additionally, parents practiced a variety of self-care strategies to cope with stressors related to parenting and attend to their well-being.

Racial Hybridity

This paper explores some possible contributions analytical psychology may make to theorising racial hybridity. Already a ‘hybrid psychology’, Lu suggests that analytical psychology is particularly well-positioned to speak to the specific experiences and challenges posed by multiraciality. In particular, Lu critically reflects on his hopes, fears, and fantasies that have arisen with the birth of his multiracial children, which may in turn act as a springboard to greater depth psychological reflections on the unique and equally ‘typical’ experience of raising mixed-raced children. Such concerns have been articulated by others such as Bruce Lee, who faced the challenge of raising multiracial children amidst a backdrop of racism in the Unites States. This paper critically assesses possible ways in which racial hybridity may be theorised from a Jungian perspective and argues that a Post-Jungian approach must reflect the flexibility and fluidity of hybridity itself.

Multiracial Housing and Public Accommodations Discrimination

Distinctive from the context of workplace discrimination where multiracial complainants articulate their own legal complaints, the housing context is characterized by an absence of such direct complaints. The issue of multiraciality in housing discrimination is instead raised by partners in interracial marriages with multiracial children. Yet, like in the employment context discussed in Chapter 2, the content of the complaints are focused on the hostility with non-whiteness and blackness in particular (as all but one case encompassed non-black racial groups). One paradigmatic case (of the several discussed in the chapter) is of a white mother’s challenge to a 2003 eviction in Ohio based upon the landlord’s expressed prejudice against her two biracial sons of white and black ancestry. The landlord expressed concern that “two black boys” lived with the complainant and stated “I don’t want your money, I want your. … niggers out of my house.” While the mother may have described her sons’ personal racial identities as biracial, the discrimination she described was rooted in societal anti-black bias.

Does this Smile Make me Look White? Exploring the Effects of Emotional Expressions on the Categorization of Multiracial Children

Previous research shows that Multiracial adults are categorized as more Black than White (i.e., Black-categorization bias), especially when they have angry facial expressions. The present research examined the extent to which these categorization patterns extended to Multiracial children, with both White and Black participants. Consistent with past research, both White and Black participants categorized Multiracial children as more Black than White. Counter to what was found with Multiracial adults in previous research, emotional expressions (e.g., happy vs. angry) did not moderate how Multiracial children were categorized. Additionally, for Black participants, anti-White bias was correlated with categorizing Multiracial children as more White than Black. The developmental and cultural implications of these data are discussed, as they provide new insight into the important role that age plays in Multiracial person perception.