Narratives of mixed-race people bringing claims of racial
discrimination in court, illuminating traditional understandings of
civil rights law
As the mixed-race
population in the United States grows, public fascination with
multiracial identity has promoted the belief that racial mixture will
destroy racism. However, multiracial people still face
discrimination. Many legal scholars hold that this is distinct from
the discrimination faced by people of other races, and traditional
civil rights laws built on a strict black/white binary need to be
reformed to account for cases of discrimination against those
identifying as mixed-race.
In Multiracials
and Civil Rights, Tanya Katerí Hernández debunks this idea, and
draws on a plethora of court cases to demonstrate that multiracials
face the same types of discrimination as other racial groups.
Hernández argues that multiracial people are primarily targeted for
discrimination due to their non-whiteness, and shows how the cases
highlight the need to support the existing legal structures instead
of a new understanding of civil rights law. The legal and political
analysis is enriched with Hernández's own personal narrative as a
mixed-race Afro-Latina.
Coming at a time
when explicit racism is resurfacing, Hernández’s look at
multiracial discrimination cases is essential for fortifying the
focus of civil rights law on racial privilege and the lingering
legacy of bias against non-whites, and has much to teach us about how
to move towards a more egalitarian society.
