Tag: Mixed-Race

Velasquez-Manoff, Moises. (28 June 2019). Want to be less racist? Move to Hawaii. New York Times.

 

A thoughtful exploration of race, racism, and the impact of a substantial mixed-race population in Hawaii on local thinking about race.

Mixed-race people, who make up nearly a quarter of Hawaii’s population of 1.4 million, serve as a kind of jamming mechanism for people’s race radar, Dr. Pauker thinks. Because if you can’t tell what people are by looking at them — if their very existence blurs the imagined boundaries between supposedly separate groups — then race becomes a less useful way to think about people.

“Dr. Pauker runs the Intergroup Social Perception Lab at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Maybe her most intriguing finding is that Hawaii can rub off on visitors, changing how they think about race.”

The article is illustrated by wonderful photographs by Damon Winter, showing some mixed-race locals.