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- Title
A Battleground of Identity: Racial Formation and the African American Discourse on Interracial Marriage.
- Authors
Doering, Jan
- Abstract
This article utilizes a sample of letters to the editor from African American newspapers to investigate racial identity formation. Drawing on an analysis of 234 letters, published predominantly between 1925 and 1965, I examine how African American writers discussed black-white intermarriage. Writers used the issue of intermarriage to negotiate conceptions of racial identity and the politics of racial emancipation. Because of its strong symbolic implications, the intermarriage discourse became a "battleground of identity" for the conflict between two competing racial ideologies: integrationism and separatism. The battleground concept elucidates why some debates become polarized, and why it is so difficult to arbitrate them. I argue that identity battlegrounds may emerge around emotionally charged and concrete but heavily symbolic issues that densely link to key ideas in the ideological systems of two or more conflicting movements. They must be issues that none of the movements can cease to compete over without surrendering their political essence. Keywords: racial formation; racial politics; interracial marriage; discourse analysis; content analysis.
- Subjects
INTERRACIAL marriage -- Social aspects; RACIAL formation theory; RACE identity; IDENTITY &; society; AFRICAN American authors; MARRIAGE of African Americans; SOCIAL integration; POLARIZATION (Social sciences)
- Publication
Social Problems, 2014, Vol 61, Issue 4, p559
- ISSN
0037-7791
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1525/sp.2014.13017