“What Are You?”: Racial Ambiguity, Stigma, and the Racial Formation Project

• DOI: 10.1080/01639625.2014.901081
• Publication Date: 2014-08-26T22:25:41Z
• Authors: Tiffanie Grier; Carol Rambo; Marshall A. Taylor
• Keywords: Deviance; Racial formation theory

Using interview data from individuals who were frequently asked some version of the question "What are you?" in regards to their race, we apply a deviance perspective frame these encounters as micro level racial formation projects. Racial projects problematized when one's race is not readily classifiable. These suggest that perceptibly ambiguous, stigma assigned and normativity enforced through discursive constraint other means. Racially ambiguous use many forms resistance navigate make identity claims either affirm or endanger normative order.