Informal whitening relations structurally erase darker maternal grandmothers over generations.

Evidence

In a commentary on “Race and Nation in Latin America,” Peter Wade suggests an insightful account of such logic over time. A darker woman will have an informal relation with a white (or lighter) man (who himself might have a formally recognized white family). Their offspring will likely be whiter. The mother of the darker woman – the children’s maternal grandmother – more often than not will be ignored or otherwise rendered invisible. The children will grow up quite probably seeking out partners at least as light as themselves, given the hardening of such social norms and expectations over historical time. These latter relations in all likelihood will become not just more normalized but more formalized too. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1128

Categorization

• QUESTION: The erasure of the grandmother is striking — is there a gender-specific violence in this whitening trajectory worth unpacking further?