Miscegenation

Miscegenation (/mɪˌsɛəˈnʃən/ miss-EJ-ə-NAY-shən) is marriage or admixture between people who are considered to be members of different races.[1] The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms miscere ('to mix') and genus ('race' or 'kind').[2] The word first appeared in Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro, a hoax anti-abolitionist pamphlet David Goodman Croly and others published anonymously in advance of the 1864 presidential election in the United States.[2][3] The term came to be associated with laws that banned interracial marriage and sex, which were known as anti-miscegenation laws.[4]

Although the term "miscegenation" was formed from the Latin for "mixing races/kinds", and it could therefore be perceived as being value-neutral, it is almost always a pejorative term which is used by people who believe in racial superiority or purity,[5] and possibly intended to be negative in the erroneous belief that it derives from the prefix mis-. Less loaded terms for multiethnic relationships, such as interethnic or interracial marriage, and mixed-race, multiethnic, or multiracial people, are more common in contemporary usage.

  1. ^ "Miscegenation Definition & Meaning | Britannica Dictionary". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  2. ^ a b "miscegenation | Origin and meaning of miscegenation by Online Etymology Dictionary". www.etymonline.com. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  3. ^ "Miscegenation; the theory of the blending of the races, applied to the American white man and negro". Library of Congress. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  4. ^ Downing, Karen; Nichols, Darlene; Webster, Kelly (2005). Multiracial America: A Resource Guide on the History and Literature of Interracial Issues. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-8108-5199-3.
  5. ^ Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 2002. Retrieved 11 July 2020. The term is used esp. by people who believe in concepts of racial superiority or racial purity and therefore object to interracial relationships ....