Re-framing the National Family: Race Mixing and Re-telling American History

Abstract

SINCE THE INCREASED VISIBILITY of the movement during debates over racial categorization for Census 2000, discourses concerning interracial relationships and individuals have multiplied. Images and stories about celebrities, such as Tiger Woods and Halle Berry, best-selling Oprah book picks, such as Slaves in the Family; and statistics on rising interracial marriage rates provide mainstream media with regular opportunities to discuss identity. Many commentators predict that the growth of Generation M (M for multiracial) will result in the end of racism. To a certain extent, this celebration of is an attempt to re-frame the meaning of interracial sexual and relationships from a shameful to a hopeful phenomenon.' Yet and still, the recent election has brought out evidence of intolerance toward mixed race people, most visibly in attacks on the flrst interracial Democratic nominee (now president), Barack Obama. Karen Seifert, a volunteer from New York, was outside of the largest polling location in Lackawanna County, Pa., on primary day when she was pressed by a Clinton volunteer to explain her backing of Obama. I trust him, Seifert replied. According to Seifert, the woman pointed to Obama's face on Seifert's T-shirt and said: He's a half-breed and he's a Muslim. How can you trust that?^ While we may be tempted to dismiss those who utilize anti-miscegenation hate speech as outliers, other data suggest that a signiflcant group of white Americans remain uncomfortable with the idea of having people of in their families. According to a 2004 national poll 2004, 34% of white Americans said they would object if their child or grandchild chose a black spouse.' And, pollsters and political scientists have released troubling flndings that suggest many white Americans would not vote for Obama just because he is of African descent.* In other words, it is likely that a portion of the white public will be uncomfortable with a Black First Family headed by a biracial father. Despite visible racism during the campaign, Barack Obama's rhetoric and that of his surrogates consistently advanced the idea that their candidate's multiracial, global biography is the stuff of the American Dream. That is, in Obama's campaign speeches and in statements from supporters, Barack Obama's interracial was reframed as profoundly American, and as a synecdoche for the multiracial, multicultural, national I2Lnu\y. Given the continued resistance to and discomfort with interracial relationships, and given the willingness of opponents to play the race (and miscegenation) card, one wonders whether this particular re-framing will ultimately be successful. Importantly, we must ask: will significant numbers of Americans buy into the multiracial national family frame? And, even if they do, will discourses involving interracial and the nation position us to have conversations not only about representations of the nation, but also about atonement to those previously excluded from the national family. Looking at previous cases of discoveries of color in the families of well-known patri-