Final Reflection

Looking over my previous posts made me realize how much I have learned about racial/ethnic identity in the U.S. over the past nine weeks. Although I enjoyed writing all of the posts, my two favorites are “Letter addressed to Thomas Jefferson from Annette Gordon-Reed” and “Letter to Stavros from Young Black Man from America.” For me, these posts represent the fact that the formation of racial and ethnic identity has been a complex process throughout history that it is often difficult to understand. In addition, my letter between Stavros and Young Black Man struck me because it shows that everyday Americans—not just scholars—are well entrenched in the language of race.

Writing a letter between Annette Gordon-Reed and Thomas Jefferson was an interesting exercise because people who study history often spend a great deal of time investigating complex individuals and events, making it difficult to make well-supported claims. From Gordon-Reed’s book, it is clear that she has invested a significant amount of time to trying to better understand Jefferson’s position on race and his relationship with Sally Hemings. My letter was premised on the assumption that sometimes, conducting historical research would be easier if historians could conduct interviews with their deceased subjects. In my letter between Gordon-Reed and Jefferson I wanted to explore the questions she would pose and how she would react to Jefferson’s complicated, and often contradictory, stance on race.

In reviewing my past postings, I also enjoyed writing the letter between Young Black Man from America and Stavros, which Toni Morrison describes in “On the Backs of Blacks.” Looking back over the letter reminded me that everyday Americans, immigrants, and people outside of political and educational institutions are well versed in the language of race. Granted Stavros and Young Black Man are characters in the film America, they still represent the fact that race-making happens on the social level and that people can locate examples of racialization in their everyday lives even though they may not read works of Critical Race, Whiteness, and Ethnic studies.

While I have learned a great deal over the course of the quarter, one aspect of racial identity that I am still interested in learning more about is how racialization functions in multiethnic settings. For example, although The Jazz Singer, Whiteness of a Different Color, and Gentleman’s Agreement focused on race during an era when European immigration was significant to American racialist thinking, I am curious in learning more about how the black/white binary is shaped or impacted by more recent immigration history, which includes people from Asia, Caribbean, and Latin America.

Moreover, I am also interested in learning more about how gender shapes the racialization processes. For example, in Pinky and Showboat the African American women characters were often juxtaposed against the white women characters through differences in physical appearance, their relationship to the domestic tasks, and mothering skills. I am curious about how white women—and perhaps other groups—have gained access to mainstream society by not only defining themselves in opposition to blacks, but also through stereotypes and popular conceptions of black womanhood.