Amalgamation Schemes: Antiblackness and the Critique of Multiracialism (review)

One of the major developments in ethnic studies over the past two decades has been the idea (and sometimes the advocacy) of multiraciality. From a theoretical perspective, this has stemmed from a post-structuralist attempt to deconstruct the categories created by the European Enlightenment and its colonial enterprise around the world. From a personal perspective, it has been driven by the life experiences in the last half-century of a growing number of people who have and acknowledge mixed parentage. The leading figures in this scholarly movement are probably Maria Root and G. Reginald Daniel, but the writers are many and include figures as eminent as Gary Nash and Randall Kennedy.

A small but dedicated group of writers has resisted this trend: chiefly Rainier Spencer, Jon Michael Spencer, and Lewis Gordon. They have raised no controversy, perhaps because their books are not well written, and perhaps because their arguments do not make a great deal of sense. It is not that there is nothing wrong with the literature and the people movement surrounding multiraciality. Some writers and social activists do tend to wax rhapsodic about the glories of intermarriage and multiracial identity as social panacea. A couple of not-very-thoughtful activists (Charles Byrd and Susan Graham) have been coopted by the Gingrichian right (to be fair, one must point out that most multiracialists are on the left). And, most importantly, there is a tension between some Black intellectuals and the multiracial idea over the lingering fear that, for some people, adopting a multiracial identity is a dodge to avoid being Black. If so, that might tend to sap the strength of a monoracially-defined movement for Black community empowerment.

With Amalgamation Schemes, Jared Sexton is trying to stir up some controversy. He presents a facile, sophisticated, and theoretically informed intelligence, and he picks a fight from the start. His title suggests that the study of multiraciality is some kind of plot, or at the very least an illegitimate enterprise. His tone is angry and accusatory on every page. It is difficult to get to the grounds of his argument, because the cloud of invective is so thick, and because his writing is abstract, referential, and at key points vague.

For Sexton (as for the Spencers and Gordon) race is about Blackness, in the United States and around the world. That is silly, for there are other racialized relationships. In the U.S., native peoples were racialized by European intruders in all the ways that Africans were, and more: they were nearly extinguished. To take just one example from many around the world, Han Chinese have racialized Tibetans historically in all the ways (including slavery) that Whites have racialized Blacks and Indians in the United States. So there is a problem with Sexton's concept of race as Blackness. There is also a problem with his insistence on monoraciality. For Sexton and the others, one cannot be mixed or multiple; one must choose ever and only to be Black. I don't have a problem with that as a political choice, but to insist that it is the only possibility flies in the face of a great deal of human experience, and it ignores the history of how modern racial ideas emerged.

Sexton does point out, as do many writers, the flawed tendencies in multiracial advocacy mentioned in the second paragraph above. But he imputes them to the whole movement and to the subject of study, and that is not a fair assessment.

The main problem is that Sexton argues from conclusion to evidence, rather than the other way around. That is, he begins with the conclusion that the multiracial idea is bad, retrograde, and must be resisted. And then he cherry-picks his evidence to fit his conclusion. He spends much of his time on weaker writers such as Gregory Stephens and Stephen Talty who have been tangential to the multiracial literature. When he addresses stronger figures like Daniel, Root, Nash, and Kennedy, he carefully selects his quotes...