ABSTRACT
Mixed race identity can provide a useful optic on power, a privileged standpoint from which important aspects of social relations can be absorbed, analyzed, and understood. The Critical Mixed Race Studies association and its academic journal stand in prima facie agreement. The official website describes the project as "the transracial, transdisciplinary, and transnational critical analysis of the institutionalization of social, cultural, and political orders based on dominant conceptions of race." Many black/white mixed-race people who reject multiracial classification advance a black subjectivity— a black-sentient consciousness, skeptical of what they see as elitism associated with projecting a biracial identity. Many black/white mixed-race people who reject multiracial classification advance a black subjectivity— a black-sentient consciousness, skeptical of what they see as elitism associated with projecting a biracial identity. A black-sentient mixed-race identity reconciles the widening separation between black/white mixed-race and blackness that has been encouraged by contemporary mixed-race politics and popular culture.
