Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

The extent to which elite universities like Columbia worked to keep black students outside their walls makes the accomplishments of Columbia’s hailed “first” black graduates even more impressive, as these students existed within institutions that found identity through racialized exclusivity. That being said, James Parker Barnett’s story highlights a problem with these narratives of “firsts”, not only within Columbia University, but at historically white institutions across the United States. As mentioned above, Columbia’s refusal to admit black students into the University created the conditions that encouraged black students to pass as white, and James Parker Barnett may be a case of just that. However, the only reason we know about James Parker Barnett was because he was caught. There were high levels of racial mixing occurring in the United States through the 1850s when Barnett was expelled from P&S [School of Physicians and Scientists], and estimates about the frequency of racial passing are contentious. Walter White, a famous fair-skinned black man who passed as white while doing investigative work for the NAACP, estimated that “approximately 12,000 white-skinned Negroes disappear” into white society every year”.⁵² Roi Ottley, a famous African-American journalist in the early 1900s, claimed that there were approximately five million white-passing black people with forty to fifty thousand passing into whiteness every year.⁵³ While these men lived in the early to mid-1900’s, well past Barnett’s time, their research proves that racial passing had become increasingly common as African descendants continued to mix with those of white ancestry. I argue that this information lends itself to the idea that it was highly unlikely that Barnett, if indeed passing, was the first nor the last black individual to pass as white at Columbia University before it officially began accepting black students. How then, can the university endeavor to honor the “first black” students at Columbia if it has no way of knowing the identities of black passers who, by racial standards of the time, were the first graduating students of African “blood”?

Ciara Keane, “Blurring the Lines: James Parker Barnett, Racial Passing, and Invisible Early Black Students at Columbia University,” Columbia University and Slavery, 2018. https://columbiaandslavery.columbia.edu/content/blurring-lines-james-parker-barnett-racial-passing-and-invisible-early-black-students.

Not Found

Pages
Categories
- Africa (404)
- Anthologies (294)
- Anthropology (1,163)
- Articles (8,697)
- Arts (1,264)
- Asian Diaspora (1,416)
- Audio (466)
- Autobiography (1,060)
- Barack Obama (717)
- Biography (1,043)
- Book/Video Reviews (734)
- Books (2,104)
- Brazil (514)
- Campus Life (462)
- Canada (468)
- Caribbean/Latin America (1,403)
- Census/Demographics (1,072)
- Chapter (45)
- Communications/Media Studies (487)
- Course Offerings (158)
- Definitions (43)
- Dissertations (446)
- Economics (112)
- Europe (548)
- Excerpts/Quotes (947)
- Family/Parenting (620)
- Forthcoming Media (57)
- Gay & Lesbian (167)
- Health/Medicine/Genetics (764)
- History (3,431)
- Identity Development/Psychology (2,112)
- Interviews (694)
- Judaism (191)
- Latino Studies (496)
- Law (947)
- Letters (11)
- Literary/Artistic Criticism (1,467)
- Live Events (662)
- Louisiana (247)
- Media Archive (12,304)
- Mexico (235)
- Mississippi (80)
- Monographs (1,445)
- My Articles/Point of View/Activities (52)
- Native Americans/First Nation (671)
- New Media (451)
- Novels (249)
- Oceania (212)
- Papers/Presentations (233)
- Passing (1,238)
- Philosophy (202)
- Poetry (95)
- Politics/Public Policy (1,802)
- Religion (489)
- Reports (64)
- Slavery (795)
- Social Justice (342)
- Social Science (2,991)
- Social Work (194)
- South Africa (138)
- Statements (9)
- Teaching Resources (136)
- Texas (65)
- Tri-Racial Isolates (100)
- United Kingdom (1,066)
- United States (8,769)
- Videos (564)
- Virginia (219)
- Wanted/Research Requests/Call for Papers (146)
- Women (1,389)
Calendar of Posts

November 2024

M T W T F S S

1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30

« Aug
Links
Meta

Mixed Race Studies

Not Found

Pages

Categories

Calendar of Posts

Links

Meta