More Than Black: Multiracial Identity & New Racial Order
"This book is a major contribution to understanding multiracial identity, a topic of increasing importance. Professor Daniel places the issues in a broad historical-comparative perspective, focusing primarily on mixed-race persons in America with some African ancestry. A leader in the multiracial identity movement, he has written a carefully researched, informative, and balanced treatment." - F. James Davis, Professor of Sociology Emeritus, Illinois State University, and author of Who Is Black? "More Than Black? is a splendid analysis of how the American nation built walls to keep people apart and how these walls are being breached and dismantled. Writing amidst a tidal wave of racial boundary crossing, the author brilliantly dissects the rise of multiracial identities and shows how this has threatened many African Americans for whom mutually exclusive racial categories, first developed as a white racial weapon, have served their purposes in an era of entitlements, quotas, and set asides. Daniel has done a great service in helping us think about the future of a racially democratic society." - Gary B. Nash, Professor of History, UCLA and Director, National Center for History in the Schools "Thankfully, in this increasingly diverse nation, deep questions about what 'white' and 'black' mean are finally coming to the fore. In an original analysis, Daniel thoroughly examines the long history of multiracial ancestries and communities in the U.S. Framing issues sociologically rather than psychologically, he probes how Eurocentrism has shaped past and present struggles over multiracial identities. Often working against the centuries-old white-racist order, struggles to assert multiracial identities began soon after the first interracial liaisons in the 1600s and continue today in the growing social and political movements to build a truly democratic multiracial society." - Joe R. Feagin, Graduate Research Professor, University of Florida and author of Racist America "...a first in giving shape to an intellectual and scholarly agenda for students of multiracial identity." - The Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies "The book's strength is in its examination of how the categorization of multiracial persons in the United States has shifted as American culture has evolved...More Than Black elegantly illuminates a relatively ignored topic...it is a contemplative and timely addition to the library of those interested in racial identity. It also provides a provocative look at the conflicting pressures experienced by multiracial individuals as their identity is repeatedly recategorized to serve social and political agendas...More Than Black provides insight into the history of multiracial identity within the United States and it inspires reflective thought on future conceptions of multiracial identity." Journal of African American Men