With his father an African-American soldier in post-World War II Germany and his mother a white German national, Rainier Spencer grew up in New York City thinking of himself as black.
That changed for him when, as an adult, he studied philosophy during pursuit of his master鈥檚 degree at Columbia University, where he began examining the nature of race and reconsidering his perceptions of his own family.
His brother, he recalls, had the same mother but a different father, also a black U.S. soldier.
鈥淚 had always considered my brother white, and that鈥檚 because of his socialization, his interests, and the way he existed as a person in my childhood,鈥 Spencer says.
However, his studies at Columbia shook that assumption.
鈥淲hen I came to the notion of critical consciousness, it didn鈥檛 make sense. How can my brother be white, and I am black?鈥 he says. This realization led him to question perceptions of race and to conclude that race is a myth, a false consciousness.
He later developed this realization into a dissertation at Emory University, and three books on the subject have followed, helping to establish Spencer as a founder of critical mixed-race theory. His most recent book, Reproducing Race: The Paradox of Generation Mix, was released in 2011.
Spencer describes himself as a 鈥渞ace skeptic.鈥 He is described in a study being conducted by doctoral student Carlos Hoyt of Simmons College in Boston as a 鈥渞ace transcender,鈥 a term Spencer easily adopts.
鈥淚 live it,鈥 says Spencer, founder of 性视界传媒鈥檚 Afro-American Studies Program and associate vice provost for academic affairs at 性视界传媒. 鈥淏iological race doesn鈥檛 exist. You can鈥檛 divide people into three, five, seven, or 17 or even 50 categories of biology that make sense because people won鈥檛 fit.鈥
In Reproducing Race, Spencer proposes a thought experiment involving three cousins. One appears black but has a white ancestor. One appears white but has a black ancestor. The third appears biracial and has ancestors of both races. None of them has 鈥減ure鈥 lineage, so how does one determine which race to classify each cousin?
It鈥檚 not logically possible, Spencer says.
鈥淭hese categories only make sense if they have been endogenous through infinity,鈥 he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 impossible to take any one African-American and go backwards through time and find only unmixed African ancestry.鈥
Even if it could be done, Spencer says, the notion that West African slaves were unmixed is another serious problem.
Race does not exist, he says. However, belief in race? That鈥檚 the real issue, he maintains.
He likens race to witchcraft and flat-earth theory. All are false, but they also carry real consequences.
When populations believed in witchcraft, women accused of it were often killed. When explorers believed the earth was flat, they were careful not to go too far. When people believe in race, discrimination 鈥 and much worse 鈥 happens. The solution, Spencer says, is 鈥渢hat everyone realizes at some point, 鈥楾his is wrong; this is silly.鈥欌
The answer is not, he argues, getting rid of the check boxes on various government forms asking for racial identity. Nor is the answer creating a new category, 鈥渕ultiracial.鈥
These are solutions that were offered in the 1990s, during debates before the 2000 census on how the Office of Management and Budget should gather racial data. These are solutions still advocated by some mixed-race scholars who trumpet the potential of 鈥淕eneration Mix,鈥 the current generation of biracial children, to end race as an issue.
鈥淭he push-back from the civil rights movement and black people was, 鈥楴o, those of you who are part black are just black, so get over it,鈥欌 Spencer says.
Spencer disagrees with both arguments. If the government wanted racial categories that made sense, it would need 316 million, one for each resident of the nation. Creating a new category, 鈥渕ultiracial,鈥 just reaffirms the existing categories.
But he agrees the government should continue to ask the question.
鈥淚t鈥檚 important to put people into the categories that racists think they are discriminating against,鈥 he says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 important because we need to knock out that discrimination.鈥
In the end the OMB decided to allow people to mark as many boxes as they wanted. On the back end, the statisticians classify people into their non-white groups.
It鈥檚 a compromise that satisfied no one, but it seems to be working, Spencer says.
In his current book, Spencer opposes the argument that race is socially or culturally based. This reasoning makes no more sense than biological race does, he says.
鈥淭here are far more differences amongst blacks than there are between blacks and whites,鈥 he says. For instance, he has more in common with white professors than he does with a black man his age from the inner city.
Spencer also takes on those who argue that mixed race people have a special role in society.
Because we are all mixed race to some degree, the notion is silly, he says. Those making the argument contradict themselves; they say they want their own category and that their movement will bring a post-racial society. How can they end racial categories when they are asking for one, he asks.
鈥淭hey say they are challenging the paradigm but what they really want is to fit into it,鈥 he says.
At this point, the debate over his perspective seems to be at a lull, he says, as no substantive counterargument in the scholarly world has emerged.
鈥淚 think my arguments are right, and people don鈥檛 want to deal with them,鈥 he says, noting the exception of Hoyt, the previously mentioned scholar from Simmons College and a few others. For now, Spencer is willing to allow that lull to continue, as he has other responsibilities to address in his current administrative post.
Though it may have to wait a few years, Spencer maintains he has more to say 鈥 and write 鈥 on the subject of race as a false consciousness.
鈥淚 think there needs to be either a national 鈥楢h-ha鈥 moment, or there needs to be millions of 鈥楢h-ha鈥 moments over time,鈥 he says. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know what it will take. Clearly, it will not happen in my lifetime, but I hope this contributes to the eroding of that false consciousness鈥. I think we want to live in a world where exterior physical differences have no impact on how we see or treat each other.鈥
