2022-03Thematic Section
Racial Fraud and the American Binary

Abstract:

In response to recent controversies about racial transitioning, I provide an argument that deceptions about ancestry may sometimes constitute fraud. In order to arrive at this conclusion, I criticize the arguments from analogy made famous by Rebecca Tuvel and Christine Overall. My claim is that we should not think of racial transitioning as similar to gender transitioning, because different identity groups possess different kinds of obstacles to entry. I then provide historical surveys of American racial categories and the various types of passing common in American history, in order to distinguish the potentially fraudulent from the relatively innocent styles of passing.

Keywords:

race, racial passing, racial fraud, identity transition, social identity, racial identity

How to cite:

Harrelson, Kevin J. “Racial Fraud and the American Binary.” Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture 6, no. 3 (2022):  44-61. https://doi.org/10.14394/eidos.jpc.2022.0024.

Author:

Kevin J. Harrelson
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Ball State University
2000 W. University Ave. Muncie, IN 47306, USA
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0228-4014
kjharrelson@bsu.edu

References:

Anderson, Laron. “Shocking Details Emerge on Indy Activist Who Faked Life as a Black Woman.” September 15, 2020. https://www.blackindylive.com/shocking-details-emerge-on-indy-activist-who-faked-life-as-a-black-woman/.

Anonymous. “CV Vitolo ‘Haddad’: Another Academic Racial Fraud?” Medium, September 4, 2020. https://medium.com/@polite_keppel_dinosaur_57/cv-vitolo-haddad-another-academic-racial-fraud-c5c41fe32110.

Appiah, Kwame A. “But Would that Still Be Me? Notes on Gender, Race, Ethnicity as Sources of Identity.” Journal of Philosophy 87, no. 10 (1990): 493-99. https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil1990871026.

Appiah, Kwame A. The Ethics of Identity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.

Appiah, Kwame A, and Amy Gutmann. “Color Conscious.” In Color Conscious. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.

Aspinall, Peter J. “Collective Terminology to Describe the Minority Ethnic Population: The Persistence of Confusion and Ambiguity in Usage.” Sociology 36, no. 4 (2002): 803-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/003803850203600401.

Bernasconi, Robert. “Crossed Lines in the Racialization Process: Race as a Border Concept.” Research in Phenomenology 42, no. 2 (2012): 206-28. https://doi.org/10.1163/156916412X651201.

Bryc, Katarzyna, Eric Y. Durand, J. Michael Macpherson, David Reich, and Joanna L. Mountain. “The Genetic Ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans Across the United States.” The American Journal of Human Genetics 96, no. 1 (2015): 37-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2014.11.010.

Cashin, Sheryll. Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2017.

Davis, Floyd. J. Who is Black?: One Nation’s Definition. University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2010.

de Oliveira, Clueci. “Is Neymar Black? Brazil and the Painful Relativity of Race.” New York Times, June 30, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/opinion/is-neymar-black-brazil-and-the-painful-relativity-of-race.html

Dineen-Wimberly, Ingrid. The Allure of Blackness among Mixed-Race Americans, 1862-1916. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvmx3k0j.

Dreisinger, Baz. Near Black: White-to-Black Passing in American Culture. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008.

Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. Dover, 1903.

Flaherty, Colleen. “Even More White Lies.” Inside Higher Ed, October 29, 2020. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/29/unmasking-another-white-professor-allegedly-posing-person-color.

Griffin, John. H. Black Like Me: The Definitive Griffin Estate Edition, Corrected from Original Manuscripts. Wings Press, 2004.

Halsell, Grace. Soul Sister. Fawcett World Publishing Company, 1969.

Heyes, Cressida J. Changing Race, Changing Sex. You’ve changed: Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity. Cambridge MA: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Hom, Sabrina L. “(Dis)Engaging with Race Theory: Feminist Philosophy’s Debate on ‘Transracialism’ as a Case Study.” Philosophy Today 62, no. 1 (2018): 31-50. https://doi.org/10.5840/philtoday2018215199.

Horrell, Muriel. Race Classification in South Africa — its Effect on Human Beings No. 2. South African Institute of Race Relations, 1958.

Jacobson, Matthew F. Whiteness of a Different Color. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1999. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvjk2w15.

Johnson, Jerah. “Jim Crow Laws of the 1890s and the Origins of New Orleans Jazz: Correction of an Error.” Popular Music 19, no. 2 (2000): 243-51. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143000000143.

Kicza, John E. “The Social and Ethnic Historiography of Colonial Latin America: The last Twenty Years.” The William and Mary Quarterly: A Magazine of Early American History and Culture 45, no. 3 (July 1988): 453-88. https://doi.org/10.2307/1923644.

Kennedy, Randall. Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption. New York, NY: Vintage, 2012.

Krug, Jessica. “The Truth, and the Anti-black Violence of my Lies.” Medium, September 3, 2020. https://medium.com/@jessakrug/the-truth-and-the-anti-black-violence-of-my-lies-9a9621401f85.

Mallon, Ron. “Passing, Traveling and Reality: Social Constructionism and the Metaphysics of Race.” Noûs 38, no. 4 (2004): 644-73. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0029-4624.2004.00487.x.

McBride, James. The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to his White Mother. London, United Kingdom: Penguin, 2006.

Mills, Charles. “Philosophers on Rachel Dolezal.” Daily Nous, June 15, 2015. https://dailynous.com/2015/06/15/philosophers-on-rachel-dolezal/.

Nash, Gary B. “The Hidden History of Mestizo America.” The Journal of American History 82, no. 3 (1995): 941-64. https://doi.org/10.2307/2945107.

Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960’s to the 1990’s. New York, NY: Routledge, 1994.

Overall, Christine. “Transsexualism and ‘Transracialism.’” Social Philosophy Today 20, (2004): 183-93. https://doi.org/10.5840/socphiltoday2004203,

Powell, A. D. Passing for Who You Really Are: Essays in Support of Multiracial Whiteness. Backintyme, 2005.

Rambo, Lewis R., and Charles E. Farhadian, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195338522.001.0001.

Robinson, Eugene. Coal to Cream: A Black Man’s Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race. New York, NY: Free Press, 1999.

Sandweiss, Martha A. Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line. London, United Kingdom: Penguin, 2009.

Segal, Alan F. “Conversion to Judaism.” In The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion in The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion, edited by Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Silvermint, Daniel. “Passing as Privileged.” Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy 5, no. 1 (2018). https://doi.org/10.3998/ergo.12405314.0005.001.

Spickard, Paul. Race in Mind: Critical Essays. Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvpj76k0.

Starr, Paul. “The Re-Emergence of ‘People of Color.’” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, (2022): 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X22000145.

Sweet, Frank W. Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule. Backintyme, 2005.

Tan, Avianne. “Adopted Woman Raised as Black Finds Out at Age 70 That Her Birth Parents Were White.” abcnews. June 24, 2015. https://abcnews.go.com/US/adopted-woman-raised-black-finds-age-70-birth/story?id=31997402.

Tindall, George B. “The Question of Race in the South Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1895.” The Journal of Negro History 37, no. 3 (1952): 277-303. https://doi.org/10.2307/2715494.

Tuvel, Rebecca. “In Defense of Transracialism.” Hypatia 32, no. 2 (2017): 263-78. https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12327.

Wade, Peter. Race and Ethnicity in Latin America: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational (Edition 2). London, UK: Pluto Press, 2010. https://doi.org/10.26530/OAPEN_625258.

White, Walter F. A Man Called White: The Autobiography of Walter White. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1995.

Williams, Gregory H. Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy who Discovered he was Black. London, United Kingdom: Penguin, 1996.

Williamson, Joel. New People: Miscegenation and Mulattoes in the United States. New York, NY: Free Press, 1980.

Wright, Jr., Luther. “Who’s Black, Who’s White, and Who Cares: Reconceptualizing the United States Definition of Race and Racial Classifications.” Vanderbilt Law Review 48, no. 2 (1995): 513.

Yancey, George A. Who is White?: Latinos, Asians, and the New Black/Nonblack Divide. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003.

Yuen, Edward. “Social Movements, Identity Politics and the Genealogy of the Term ‘People of Color.’” New Political Science 19, nos. 1-2 (1997): 97-107. https://doi.org/10.1080/07393149708429789.

Open Access Statement:

This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as the author and original source are properly cited. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Submitting a text to Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture means that the author agrees with the general conditions of this license. The author does and will maintain copyrights and publishing rights for his/her article without any restrictions.

situs slothttps://disdukcapil.salatiga.go.id/ngacor/slot gacortotomacau4dsitus totositus totositus totoslot gacorsitus togelsitus totoagen totositus togelsitus totositus togel resmislot gacorslot gacorslot gacorbento4d