ABSTRACT
This chapter is a meditation on the usefulness of models or typologies for under-
standing racial hierarchy and social class, and, specifi cally, the racial and class
positioning of multiracial people of various sorts and in various contexts. We
begin by examining fi ve models that have been put forward regarding racial hier-
archy and the social positioning of multiracial people. Each describes a particular
social and historical context; each has an argument about that context that may
seem plausible to some advocates; and each has fl aws that stand out to other
onlookers. Each helps us see some things, even as it obscures others. In the second
half of this chapter, we will consider another model: the “one drop” rule, and its
corollary assumption that it has always been advantageous in social class terms
for racially mixed people who could “pass” as White to do so. We fi nd that model
– and in particular, its corollary theory about class mobility – leaves something to
be desired. That, in turn, may cast doubt on the class assumptions of some of the
other models we examine in the fi rst part of the chapter.
