Reevaluation of the Influence of Phenotype and Reflected Appraisals for Mixed Race Identity

• In Event: 029 - Regular Session. Multiracial Classification/Identity

Abstract

While it is understood that races are socially constructed not biological, one result of their social construction is nonetheless society wide mental constructions of what members of each race physically “look like.” From this cultural mindset, research into the role of appearance in mixed race identity has examined whether mixed race individuals’ approximation to these images is associated with their racial identity. Keeping in mind that it is less a person’s actual phenotype than the social perception of those features that is influential, scholars draw on the theory of reflected appraisals to theorize exactly how appearance influences racial identity. However, postulating that mixed race racial identity develops via reflected appraisals rests on the assumption that at best that the majority of, and at worst that all of, other people perceive the individual’s appearance in the same manner. While the majority of individuals’ socially ascribed race can be discerned visually by the casual but culturally competent observer, the phenotype of many mixed race people can not only be read in multiple ways but can be altered to the point of changing others’ racial perception simply due to routine body care work. This paper draws on interviewees with 30 mixed race adults in order to more completely specify the mechanisms by which appearance influences mixed race identity for those for whom consistent perception does not occur. It advances the theory that identity can form from consistent inconsistent perception if that consistent inconsistency itself is quintessentially characteristic of membership in a specific group.

Author

• Jennifer Patrice Sims, University of Wisconsin-River Falls