Appearance,Parentage,and Paradox: The White Privilege of Bi/Multiracial Americans with White Ancestry

Abstract

The growth of the bi/multiracial American population has inspired a corresponding surge in scholarship on this historically understudied racial group. Simultaneously, a much-needed mainstream discussion has emerged about the unearned, often invisible privileges of being White in American society. In this article, I enrich the literature in both areas by elucidating how some bi/multiracial Americans benefit from, yet also pay a price for, whiteness and White privilege through the narratives of 30 participants from a variety of racially mixed backgrounds, all of whom have White ancestry. First, I explore how some participants experience traditional White privilege through their White-appearing features. Second, I examine an almost invisible iteration of White privilege that participants acquired through their white parent, irrespective of my respondents’ skin color. Third, I illuminate the price of appearing White (and light) for bi/multiracials in ways that are similar to but also different from monoracism. This article analyzes the paradoxical manifestation of White privilege in a growing cohort of Americans: bi/multiracials with White ancestry.