What is Racial Admixture (Miscegenation)?

Miscegenation (/mɪˌsɛdʒɪˈneɪʃən/; from the Latin miscere "to mix" + genus "kind") is the
mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, or
procreation. Because of the term's historical use in contexts that typically implied
disapproval, more unambiguously neutral terms such as interracial, interethnic, or cross-
cultural are more common in contemporary usage.
The term miscegenation has been used since the 19th century to refer to interracial marriage
and interracial sexual relations, and more generally to the process of genetic admixture.
Historically, the term has been used in the context of laws banning interracial marriage and
sex, known as anti-miscegenation laws. The Latin term entered historical records during
European colonialism and the Age of Discovery.

One of the peculiarities of American discussion about race is that skin colour is assumed to
be synonymous with racial distinctions. That is, skin colour is not just a trait, but it is the trait
which defines between population differences. There’s a reason for this, the skin is the largest
organ and it is very salient. Populations with little phylogenetic relationship to each other,
from India to the Pacific to Southeast Asia have been referred to as “black” by lighter-
skinned populations. No population is referred to by their neighbours as those “straight
hairs,” to my knowledge. But another point in the United States is that historically the black-
white dichotomy has dominated our historical narrative to the exclusion of others. (with an
asterisk for Native Americans) Though black Americans are an admixed population, which is
around 20% European in ancestry with considerable variance (e.g., ~10% of the black
American population is more than 50% European by ancestry), white Americans are
relatively homogeneously European. Unlike the populations of Latin America admixture did
not occur along a continuum, and due to hypodescent there was a categorical binning where
black Americans with any visible African ancestry were categorized as non-white (and some
with no visible African ancestry!).
But the past is not the present. Today Americans of Latin American origin are a larger
proportion of the population than black Americans. These groups are often admixed in
ancestry, and exhibit a continuum of appearance. The mean proportions of ancestry can also
vary from region to region, as evidenced by the recent paper I pointed to earlier this week.
While black Americans and white Americans are nearly disjoint in physical appearance, there
are Latinos of all phenotypes. Most understand that the quasi-racial status of the
Hispanic/Latino category is awkward, and at some point the old paradigm will need to shift.

Sources:
 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscegenation#Genetic_admixture
 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2009/05/skin-color-is-not-
race/#.WgeJ62hSzIU