The United States of the United Races: A Utopian History of Racial Mixing GregCarter. New York: New York University Press, 2013.

Abstract

United States of the United Races: A Utopian History of Racial Mixing Greg Carter. New York: New York University Press, 2013.In this seven-chapter history, Greg Carter traces the trajectory of political and philosophical conversations about Americans of mixed race (the term Carter prefers to use rather than multi-racial) since the post-revolutionary era of the United States. Taking inspiration for the book's title from Wendell Phillips's The United States of United Races essay (60), Carter aims to enumerate and examine the statesmen, writers, and other luminaries who praised mixture as a means to bring equality to all, and to fulfill an American destiny (3), a position that Carter suggests has been passed over by other historians (3).To a certain extent, the stakes that Carter outlines above are accurate. fact that Carter's study cites centuries of data regarding race mixture in the United States makes it unique, yet currently, broad considerations of racial mixture are numerous in scholarship. There are many general texts about racial relations as well as those with a specific focus, such as Renee C. Romano's Race Mixing: Black-White Marriage in Postwar America (2003), Lauren L. Basson's White Enough To Be American: Race Mixing, Indigenous People, and the Boundaries of State and Nation (2008), and Christina A. Sue's Land of the Cosmic Race: Race Mixture, Racism, and Blackness in Mexico (2013).The recent proliferation of scholarly interest in racial mixture takes impetus, perhaps, as Carter did, from the election of President Barack Obama and Obama's status as a mixed-race American. It would be difficult not to think of the President's genetics in tandem with Carter's discussion, since artist Ron English's fusion portrait Abraham Obama comprises the cover art of the book. work is well-chosen as a segue into the text, for it forces viewers into a visual double-take; mimicking a signature (192) that according to Carter, happens often in the lives of mixed race persons-the moment when asked 'What are you?' occurs (192).Carter differentiates his project by stating the study uncovers a narrative of positive notions just as important as the negative, and puts both the positive and the negative in the historical context, recovering past advocates for or against racial mixture and amplifying the resonances over time (5). Finally, Carter claims not to privilege one kind of racial mixing (for example, black and white) in the book but rather interrogates mixture in any configuration as an engine for positive change (5). …