Politics beyond Black and White Biracial Identity and Attitudes in America

The US is transforming into a multiracial society: today one-in-six new marriages are interracial and the multiple-race population is the fastest-growing youth group in the country. In Politics Beyond Black and White, Lauren D. Davenport examines the ascendance of multiracial identities and their implications for American society and the political landscape. Amassing unprecedented evidence, this book systematically investigates how race is constructed and how it influences political behavior. Professor Davenport shows that biracials' identities are the product of family, interpersonal interactions, environment, and, most compellingly, gender stereotypes and social class. These identities, in turn, shape attitudes across a range of political issues, from affirmative action to same-sex marriage, and multiracial identifiers are shown to be culturally and politically progressive. But the book also reveals lingering prejudices against race-mixing, and that intermarriage and identification are highly correlated with economic prosperity. Overall findings suggest that multiracialism is poised to dismantle some racial boundaries, while reinforcing others.

Acknowledgements; List of figures; List of tables; Part I. Background and Framework: 1. The rise of the multiple-race population; 2. The political construction of racial boundaries; Part II. Constructing Racial Identification and Identity: 3. Creating racial identification; 4. Processes of identity formation; Part III. The Politicization of Identity: 5. The development of racial ideologies and attitudes; 6. The development of social attitudes; 7. Multiple-minority biracials and the construction of identity; Part IV. Conclusions: 8. The implications of multiracialism for American society and politics; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.

Lauren D. Davenport is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, where she is also a faculty affiliate at the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. She received her Ph.D. from Princeton University. Her research has been published in the American Political Science Review and the American Sociological Review, as well as featured in national media outlets including CNN, Time, NBC News, and National Public Radio.