A Challenge to Black Identity and Black Single Race Political Strategies

Race mixing has been a public policy and public attitude issue since the early development of American society. Colonial laws forbade intimate relationships between individuals of European heritage (white folks) and those of African heritage (both free and enslaved). Only after the unanimous decision by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Loving versus Virginia, in 1957, did marriage between individuals of different races become legal across the land. Of course, changing discriminatory laws did not immediately change the hearts and minds of the majority or minority populations in the United States.

The mixed-race population has been a largely marginalized issue in political race relations in this country, especially in the arena of affirmative action politics. Recent political assaults by State legislatures and referendums in numerous states in the nation banning affirmative action programs pose a direct threat to the historic political gains by African Americans. The proliferation in the growth of the American population who identify themselves as mixed-race contributes a significant challenge to the single race strategy of Black politics in America. This political dilemma is illustrated in the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the law approved by the population of the State of Michigan banning affirmative action programs in state public universities and institutions. In the case of Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative, Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the plurality, cast doubt upon the court's capacity to deliberate over race cases -- and mixed-raced people were said to be the culprits. Justice Kennedy and the Court’s majority suggested that mixed-race people confound the Court’s capacity to define individuals according to race which complicates the equity of affirmative action programs. This paper qualifies the evolving status of the mixed-race population in the United States and explores the evolving complications of the Black political movement’s single race political strategy