Biraciality and Nationhood in
Contemporary American Art
by KYMBERLY N. PINDER.
Published in Third Text: Critical
Perspectives on Art and Culture 53,
Winter 2000-01.
I am constantly looking for information/art dealing with being biracial. This article was really interesting and the following is my response to it.
The painting at the left was mentioned in the article I have linked. It is called, Grandma and the Frenchman: Identity Crisis (1991) and was painted by Robert Colescott. Colescott is described as an artist "who has made a career out of confronting racism and racial taboos in his art" (Pinderfull). The woman in this painting has all the colors and features of the different races and is seen as a "tragic mulatto" figure. Colescott says this work is "all about identity — this woman cannot have just a two-faced Picasso head, she must be even more fragmented because her identity is so screwed up. Mixed-race people are all around us, we all are and have been for centuries." I can agree with this quote because people act like the races haven't been mixing forever. Back in slavery times there were light-skinned house slaves, how do you suppose they gained this complexion? Interracial reproduction wasn't allowed but it did happen.
Pinderfull also discusses cultural icons like Tiger Woods and questions whether his success will make it easier for others that are multi-. In my sociology class we were discussing that race identification is somewhat socialized. It must be if the census keeps changing, growing to accommodate everyone. To check off bi-racial or multi-racial can mean anything though. Is this an accurate representation of our population? Also, why should it matter. It makes people compartmentalize themselves, you still have to choose. What does "other" mean? I find myself checking that on applications.
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