Beyond Black ─ Biracial Identity in America

Rockquemore (African American studies, U. of Illinois at Chicago) and Brunsma (sociology, U. of Missouri-Columbia) expand on the idea that racial identity, more and more, includes two or more of what we used to clearly define as a race or ethnic group. They explain how, after the civil rights era, racial identity and ideas about it have changed, how past research into biracial identity contrasts with that conducted in the present, sociological factors affecting racial identity, the role of physical appearance in perceptions of race, and who is Black now as opposed to who will be Black in the future. The chapter on what it means to be considered of mixed race in modern America is especially interesting. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Kerry Ann Rockquemore is associate professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and coauthor of Raising Biracial Children. David L. Brunsma is associate professor of sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia and coeditor of The Sociology of Katrina: Perspectives on a Modern Catastrophe.