Commentary and Book Review: Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination

(Excerpt) Can a drop of whiteness or “looking white” save someone from anti-Blackness? Are mixed-race peoples special, and should they be a protected class under the law? Did Loving v. Virginia’s legalization of interracial marriage lead to race becoming insignificant? Tanya Hernández’s Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination debunks persistent myths that racial mixture will eradicate racism and heal the racial wounds of the United States.

Using cases and other legal sources, Hernández persuasively argues that multiracials are not exempt from racial discrimination. Multiracials and Civil Rights crystalizes the pervasiveness of white supremacy while offering a sociopolitical lens by which to tackle racial injustices. Hernández’s book hails from legal studies and offers a much needed lens to augment understandings of race, law, and the state. Much of the scholarship on mixed race studies comes from sociology, political science, psychology, history, media studies, and literature.

The book accomplishes an important intervention, with an evident dedication to engaged research and scholarship, marking the tangible material realities of multiracials in the legal system. Presenting a valuable archive of legal records, Hernández addresses how multiracials experience discrimination and captures a U.S. landscape of white supremacy and racial discrimination coexisting with ideologies of colorblindness and racial progress. Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination converses with literature in several fields and joins a recent plethora of scholarship on mixed-race identities, stories, and experiences.