Spurious Issues: Race And Multiracial Identity Politics In The United States

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Avalon Publishing, Aug 12, 1999 - Social Science - 240 pages
Recent times have seen the rise of a movement lobbying for explicit recognition of multiracial identity as separate from any other racial category. Factions in this movement have petitioned the government for the addition of a federal multiracial category to the census and to other official forms. While these attempts have as yet been unsuccessful, the potential impact of such a change cannot be overstated. Rainier Spencer takes up the claims of multiracial activists, subjecting their arguments to a level of scholarly rigor they have heretofore not been required to meet. Demonstrating that the twin justifications for a federal multiracial category—accuracy and self-esteem—are inherently contradictory, Spencer presents an absorbing analysis of race, multirace, and categorization that shakes the very foundations of racial identity on all sides. Spurious Issues is a critical examination of multiracial identity politics in the United States, and of the specific issues surrounding federal racial classification. It is also a book about race generally, an extended argument that invites and challenges its readers to assume a skeptical position in regard to one of the most widely accepted but rarely analyzed components of life in the United States.

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Contents

Introduction
1
Notes
10
13
83
Copyright

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About the author (1999)

Rainier Spencer is assistant professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is a rising figure in the field of racial identity, arguing that neither race nor multirace are viable bases of personal identity for the future.

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