Daniel McNeil - Sex and Race in the Black Atlantic: Mulatto Devils and Multiracial Messiahs

Mulatto Devils and Multiracial Messiahs

First published 2010
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016

Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
McNeil, Daniel R.
Sex and race in the black Atlantic : mulatto devils and multiracial messiahs / by
Daniel McNeil.
p. cm.(Routledge studies on African and black diaspora)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Racially mixed peopleAtlantic Ocean Region. I. Title.
HT1523.M36 2010
305.800997dc22
2009036136

ISBN 0-203-85736-4 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-87226-X (hbk)

ISBN10: 0-203-85736-4 (ebk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-87226-3 (hbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-203-85736-6 (ebk)

God made the white man and God made the black man, said colonial America, but the devil made the mulatto.

J.A. Rogers, Sex and Race: Negro-Caucasian Mixing in All Ages and All Lands (1944)

From Martin Luther Kings hopeful language, to Doris Lessings four-gated city, to Jean Toomers American, the race-free world has been posited as ideal, millennial, a condition possible only if accompanied by the Messiah.

Toni Morrison, Home in
The House That Race Built:
Black Americans, U.S. Terrain
ed. W. Lubiano (1997)

I first encountered the term half-caste when I was thirteen years old. Bored by a British history class in which a teacher read economic statistics from a faded handout, I turned my attention to the glossy photographs Helen was showing Matthew.

What are they? I asked.

Theyre pictures of my new cousin. My aunts just had a beautiful half-caste baby.

What does half-caste mean?

Matthew started laughing. People like you.

Whaddaya mean?

People with a coloured dad and a white mum.

Huh.

I wasnt particularly pleased with a label that considered at least one of my parents a cast-off, but still managed to deliver a suitably half-hearted smile at the thought of belonging to a group filled with beautiful kids. Later in the day I recounted the conversation to my mum and she reminded me about the ugly imperialistic connotations of words that were, pace Matthew and Helen, usually linked to people with a coloured mum and a white dad. Drawing on the Black Power movements of the 1960s, she also made it clear that there were plenty of people who were beautiful, Black and British.

Over fifteen years have passed since my peers imparted their limited knowledge of racial labels and my mum channelled Malcolm X as she passed on information about the 1,001 colours that found solace and redemption in a Black culture. In that time I have taught history to many students in the United Kingdom, United States and Canada who have expected me to represent a Black race and, given the power of Hollywood and ethnic nationalism, told me that I was more of an African American than a purebred Brit. This book wrestles with the expectations of Helen, Matthew, my mum and my students as it documents the consequences of politically incorrect labels, such as half-caste and mulatto, on individuals who are asked to take national and/or racial tests under the influence of American popular culture and Western nations desperate to pronounce their multicultural credentials.

Most monographs, stories, articles and blogs about mixed-race identity spend an inordinate amount of time defending the sanity of their subjects. This is understandable when ideologues and pragmatists have little time for academic talk about the social construction of race and continue to create a mythical, pseudo-biological essence that needs to be protected from infiltration, penetration and dilution. The desire to fashion normal, national citizens (who just happen to be of mixed race) also reflects the historical baggage of a term associated with the polite racists who believed that the children of interracial relationships were burdened by confusion and resentment, as well as the rowdy racists who exclaimed race mixing IS Commu-nism. However, the time spent responding to the questions set by primary definers and problem makersWhat should be done about mixed-race children? How should they be classified? Where should they be located?often emerges at the expense of an analysis of mixed-race artistry. Lest we forget, mixed-race individuals have not just been passive victims of racist discourse; they have developed pieces of art to challenge, provoke and entertain individuals who identify with a single nation and/or race.