Sabrina L. Hom, "Critical Mixed Race Philosophy: Rethinking Kinship and Identity" (Lexington Books, 2025)
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What dominant narratives shape mixed‑race identity and why do they matter?
Hi everyone, this is Marshall Poe. I'm the founder of the New Books Network and I'm also a historian. I used to be a history professor and I love maps, so I'm especially happy to tell you that this episode is sponsored by What's Your Map, which was the winner of the Best Education Podcast at the 2025 British Podcast Awards. What's Your Map is hosted by historian and prize-winning author Professor Jerry Broughton. In each episode, he invites a guest to share a map close to their heart and unfurl the ideas, inspirations, and stories behind it. I can tell you I've listened and it's fascinating. The podcast is in its sixth series and is enjoyed by audiences around the globe. You can explore all the maps in the podcast online.
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Hello and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Sarah Tyson, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Denver. I'm co-host of the channel, along with Kerry Fichtor, Robert Talese, and Malcolm Keating. Together, we bring you conversations with philosophers about their new books, drawing from a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with Sabrina L. Hum, Associate Professor of Philosophy and the Program Coordinator for Women's Studies at Georgia College and State University. Her book, Critical Mixed Race Philosophy, Rethinking Kinship and Identity, is just out from Lexington Books. What are dominant narratives of mixed race identity?
What are those narratives doing in everyday life and within philosophical discourse? How can attending to the narratives and actions of people who identify as mixed race not just interrupt these dominant narratives, but change our understandings of ancestry, race, sexuality, and much more. In critical mixed-race philosophy, Um tackles these questions to argue for the view that many mixed-race people have taken up their positioning within and between racial groups in critical and transformative ways. If we disrupt the dominant tropes of objectifying mixed race people, Hum shows us, to attend to what they say and do, we can find a critical standpoint that adds much to our thinking about and collective action in regards to kinship, embodiment, and identity.
Sabrina Hum, welcome to New Books and Philosophy. Thank you so much. Well, let's get started with your background as a philosopher and your interests and how you came to write this
book. Well, you know, as a philosopher, I think I'm sort of like Bell Hooks says. She talks about being a kid who just constantly asked questions. And that's definitely that was me. I'm the stereotypical philosopher and even more stereotypical in the sense of mixed race people is that I was I was constantly encountering these questions about what do I put on this form that asks me my race? And how do I respond to these people who are asking me things like, what are you? No, what are you really? Right. So I started out from a young age, not just questioning, but questioning things about race. And, you know, I remember filling out the census with my parents and, you know, they asked me, hey, what do you want us to put for race?
I was probably nine. And I said, I don't know. What do you mean? I can only check one. And my mother said, well, you know, traditionally children are identified by the race of the father. And baby feminist me, I said, well, I don't know about that. I don't think so. So at nine, I was already thinking about this sort of thing. And I was really lucky in that I went out of the college. I wanted to study philosophy. I already had some exposure, which is really rare for high school students in the U.S.,
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What dominant narratives shape mixed‑race identity and why do they matter?
0:00–5:51
2
How did Sabrina’s early life and academic training lead her to write *Critical Mixed Race Philosophy*?
5:51–13:07
3
What is “mixed‑race futurism” and why does the author argue it’s historically inaccurate?
13:07–25:00
4
How does the book expose the erasure of mixed‑race histories in U.S. census and immigration law?
25:00–35:13
5
What is a mixed‑race standpoint and how can it critique race, gender, and sexuality together?
35:13–43:13
6
How can kinship, embodiment, and food practices reshape mixed‑race identity beyond biological essentialism?
43:13–49:52
7
What ethical questions arise from transnational surrogacy and reproductive technologies for mixed‑race families?
49:52–57:38
8
How does the concept of “kinship violence” connect mass incarceration, family separation, and mixed‑race oppression?
57:38–1:23:59
Speakers
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PJ DiPietro, "Sideways Selves Travesti and Jotería, "Struggles Across the Américas" (U Texas Press, 2025)