Either/Or: A Mulatto Assault on Totalism

“What are you,” they asked me, a young, hazel eyed, coffee skinned boy.

“Well,” I replied, “my mother is German-Irish (white) and my father is African-American (black).”

They stared at me blankly; it was obvious my ethnicity had caught them off guard. As I attempted to subdue the frustration that began to betray itself in my eyes, the ensuing question would be one that I would continue to answer throughout my entire life: “Well which one (ethnicity) are you, black or white?” This question presented itself in many different ways throughout the years but my answer to the question never changed: “I am both.” However, I have recently discovered a new but similar way to answer this question…

I never thought of this assertion as defiant or malevolent so you can imagine my confusion when the person I was speaking with became visibly agitated. Often times this person (black or white) would (directly or indirectly) attempt to convince me that the world would never affirm my claim to “bothness” and I should therefore choose one or the other.

In his book RedeemingMulatto, Brian Bantum addresses this tragic phenomenon from a theological perspective. Bantum suggests through his careful and astute interaction with philosophy, history, literature and theology that the mulatto/a body poses a problem to culture because it rejects a mentality of totalism (pg. 20). Bantum asserts that mulatto/a bodies disrupt the religious and racial ideologies of “purity” insofar as they demonstrate a divergence in “racial performance” (pg. 28-29). These mulatto/a (also read inter-racial) bodies reject the traditional American boundaries of racial purity (whiteness) by existing/claiming numerous ethnicities. Bantum acknowledges that this is often to the chagrin of white counterparts who have deified and commidified whiteness over all other pigmentations (pg. 32-33, 54). Therefore, the mulatto/a existence can be viewed as a threat to racial structures because it rejects Western ethnic constructs and demonstrates an impossible possibility: reconciliation amongst the transgressor (whites) and the transgressed (blacks/other ethnic peoples) (pg. 33, 39).

In an attempt to offer an alternative articulation of race and theology, Bantum provocatively suggests that Christ was mulatto/a in the sense that he exists in utter difference (God/Man Phil. 2:6-7) unified to a single, hybrid body (pg. 99, 108). Christ is neither/nor—but. Christ transforms notions of purity and totalism by demonstrating, through his life, an impossible possibility (Luke 1:43-56): the enjoining of the Creator and the creature. Through the incarnation, Christ invites his followers to reject the dichotomies of either/or and embrace the possibilities of neither/nor—but. Through baptism, discipleship, prayer and a commitment to an ecclesial community, the Christian becomes incorporated into Christ’s mulattic body which embraces a multiplicity of tongues (Acts 2:1-12; 15:1-35; Gal 3:28) (pg. 190). “Christ gives birth to mixed race children whose very presence and whose lives declare a different possibility” (pg. 120). I share Bantum’s conviction that if one truly desires to live into the body of Christ, they will embrace their foreign looking brother or sister, and reject the totalizing racial logic that has predominated Western culture (pg. 142, 148-149).

“Well which one are you, black or white,” they ask me, a young, hazel eyed, coffee skinned boy.

“Well,” I reply, “I am neither/nor—but.”

By Josiah R. Daniels

Dedicated to Aria and Sarkis Smith