Tiger Woods Is Not the End of History: Or, Why Sex across the Color Line Won’t Save Us All

Henry Yu concludes the Forum by agreeing that Hollinger’s essay quite rightly identifies interracial marriage and sex as an interesting topic for examining "United States history." Unfortunately, he contends, Hollinger’s argument goes too far in claiming that this history of sexual contact is a sign of hope, both for the United States and for the rest of the world. The intellectual interest in interracial sexuality has a long history in itself, defining certain acts of sexual transgression as signs of progress in race relations while ignoring other acts. Indeed, race-mixing as a concept has contributed to race-making, determining the boundaries of racial categories rather than erasing or lessening the effects of racial borders. Rather than seeing interracial sexuality as an indication of progress, Yu charts regional variations in racialization as a historical process, revealing the very different ways that migration and transnational connections have affected and changed definitions of racial difference in the Pacific and Atlantic regions.