Mixed Race Studies

slippery positions

The State
2013-05-17

Tiana Reid
Columbia University

As a self-defined Black, lesbian, mother, warrior poet, Audre Lorde is the model representative for intersectionality. As such, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches has become a ubiquitous text in undergraduate courses, for the theory and practice of intersectionality; a way to look at what women’s studies scholar Leslie McCall calls “the relationships among multiple dimensions and modalities of social relationships and subject formations.” Put crudely, intersectionality is an idea used to explain the links between positions or configurations of oppression. What’s more, as a Caribbean-American (her parents were born in Barbados and Carriacou), we could say Lorde straddled two worlds—or perhaps none at all.

Lorde’s poetry as poetry and not as purely a feminist rubric, however, has been written about far less. In Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde, writer and scholar Alexis De Veaux describes the genesis of the poem “Sahara,” published in Lorde’s 1978 book of poems, The Black Unicorn, in a moment while Lorde was on a plane in 1977 that passed over the Sahara desert after making a stop in Madrid to refuel. The poet, flying from New York City, was on her way to Lagos, Nigeria for FESTAC, the Second World African Festival of Arts and Culture. Lorde’s trip to Nigeria is meaningful not simply because the plane ride—the birds-eye view of the vastness of the Sahara—inspired the homonymous poem. By 1977, Nigeria had emerged as what De Veaux calls the “richest black-ruled nation” in Africa because of oil wealth. Bringing together Black activists, academics, writers, artists and spectators, FESTAC acted as a transnational spectacle establishing new political, literary and racial grounds.

What’s most significant here is that despite the literal and symbolic coming together of a black diasporic vision in the name of arts and culture, Lorde stayed on the fringes and felt separate from some sense of a monolithic group identity, an identity based seemingly solely on race—and not gender or sexuality. Lorde’s participation and view on FESTAC is mostly shrouded in mystery but what we do have is the poem “Sahara.” I read “Sahara” through Lorde’s trip to FESTAC and thus, envision landscapes of diaspora as heterogeneous and transformative. Her hesitation toward FESTAC parallels the poem’s fluctuating hesitation toward the Sahara desert. I say hesitation rather than outright fear despite the all-encompassing terror that can be gleaned from Lorde’s approach to the masculine desert: “grief of sand… male sand / terrifying sand.” The hesitation emerges from the heterogeneous incarnations sand is allowed to take. Rocks, what sand is made of, take millions and millions of years to become sand, meaning the image of a desert can’t be separated from its process, from its formation through finely divided particles, a prolonged breaking down…

Read the entire article here.

What Obama must say to African-American grads

CNN Opinion
Cable News Network
2013-05-18

Paul Butler, Professor of Law
Georgetown University

—”My brothers.”

That is how President Obama should begin one of the most significant speeches of his presidency: the commencement address at Morehouse College this Sunday. Addressing the historically black all male institution gives Obama an opportunity to rectify his strategic neglect of African-Americans. In this high-profile talk to his own demographic, the president has some explaining to do.

Obama’s identity as a black man is usually communicated subliminally, with the swag in his walk, the basketball court on the East Lawn, the sexy glances at the first lady, his overall cool. Now, however, comes the time to be explicit: to speak out loud his affiliation, his fraternal pride and concern. That’s the good work that calling us “brothers” would do…

Read the entire opinion piece here.

DePaul Art Minute – War Baby/Love Child exhibition

DePaul Newsroom
DePaul Art Museum
2013-05-16

DePaul University Associate Professor Laura Kina discusses how art featured in the “War Baby/Love Child” exhibit helps to tell the story of mixed race Asian Americans and the complexities of their mixed-heritage identities, in the third installment of the DePaul Art Minute, which provides a forum for DePaul professors to relate their expertise to artwork at the DePaul Art Museum.

Local Artists Collaborate on Asian Heritage Art Exhibits at DePaul

Vocalo Morning Amp
Vocalo 90.7 FM
Chicago, Illinois
2013-05-16

Brian Babylon and Molly Adams, Hosts

The exhibit War Baby/Love Child at the DePaul Art Museum highlights the work of mixed race artists who share Asian heritage in their identities. Curator Laura Kina and artist Mequitta Ahuja joined AMp hosts Brian Babylon and Molly Adams in the studio this morning and discussed their personal family lineage, the stereotype stamped on mixed children whose roots came from Asian countries where the United States was involved in, and how kinship is formed among “war babies” through artistic expression and exhibits.

Download the story here.

News Release: Lectures in Edenton and Raleigh this weekend

Chowan Discovery Group
2013-05-15

Marvin T. Jones, Executive Director

This weekend, the Winton Triangle’s history will be presented at special events in Edenton and Raleigh.  On the morning of Friday, May 17, the town of Edenton is observing its 300th anniversary. Marvin T. Jones, Executive Director of the Chowan Discovery Group, is one of two speakers lecturing on Edenton area history.
 
The next day, Saturday, May 18, Jones recounts the Winton Triangle role in the Civil War.  The venue is the United States Colored Troop Symposium at the North Carolina History Museum in Raleigh.  Jones will be speaking at 2:30pm.
 
The Winton Triangle is the 260 year-old landowning community of color that traverses the triangle formed by Winton, Ahoskie and Cofield.  In the past year, the Chowan Discovery Group (http://www.chowandiscovery.org/) has made presentations in New York City, Chicago, Greensboro, Durham and Washington, D.C. 

Among the venues were the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference at DePaul University where Jones hosted two panels about Roanoke-Chowan and Appalachian mixed race peoples.  Other occasions were three Winton Triangle presentations at the African American Genealogical and Historical Society Conference in Greensboro.  Since the April 2012 erection and dedication of the Robert L. Vann Marker in Ahoskie, Marvin Jones has given three radio interviews about Vann and the Winton Triangle.  Internet links to these interviews are found on the Chowan Discovery website (“Presentations”).

For more information about the upcoming lectures, contact the Chowan Discovery Group at 202.726.4066 or info@chowandiscovery.org.

Mixing Matters: Critical Intersectionalities: An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Symposium on Critical Mixed Race Studies

Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies (CERS)
University of Leeds
2013-05-18, 08:45-17:15 BST (Local Time)

Key note speakers:

Dr. Suki Ali is a Senior Lecturer at the London School of Economics. Her research interests include feminist cultural studies, theories of identity and embodiment and particularly the interplay between gender, ‘race’ and class. Dr. Ali is the author of several books, articles and chapters including ‘Mixed-Race: Post-Race: Gender, New ethnicities and cultural practices’ and ‘Reading Racialised Bodies: Learning to see Difference’.

Dr. Rebecca Chiyoko King-O’Riain is a Senior Lecturer at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Her research interests are in people of mixed descent; emotions, technology and globalization; race/ethnicity; critical race theory; beauty; and Japanese Americans. She has published in Ethnicities, Sociology Compass, Journal of Asian American Studies, and Amerasia Journal. Her book Pure Beauty: Judging Race in Japanese American Beauty Pageants (University of Minnesota Press) examines the use of blood quantum rules in Japanese American Beauty Pageants. She is currently researching and writing about ‘Global Mixed Race’ and ‘The Globalization of Love’.

Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) is a rapidly growing body of scholarship and through the continued challenging of essentialized conceptions of ‘race’ and ethnicity, CMRS becomes an emerging paradigm for examining the politics of ‘race’, racism and representation. CMRS can be defined as “the transracial, transdisciplinary, and transnational critical analysis of the institutionalization of social, cultural, and political orders based on dominant conceptions of race. CMRS emphasizes the mutability of race and the porosity of racial boundaries in order to critique processes of racialization and social stratification based on race. CMRS addresses local and global systemic injustices rooted in systems of racialization” (Critical Mixed Race Studies Association). In this transnational, interdisciplinary symposium, we seek to explore these components through the lens of intersectionalities in individual experience, theorising and activism.

For more information, click here. View the program here.

A Black Nurse, a German Soldier and an Unlikely WWII Romance

The New York Times
2013-05-14

Alexis Clark

The nurse and the soldier may never have met – and eventually married – had it not been for the American government’s mistreatment of black women during World War II.

Elinor Elizabeth Powell was an African-American military nurse. Frederick Albert was a German prisoner of war. Their paths crossed in Arizona in 1944. It was a time when the Army was resisting enlisting black nurses and the relatively small number allowed entry tended to be assigned to the least desirable duties.

“They decided they were going to use African-Americans but in very small numbers and in segregated locations,” said Charissa Threat, a history professor at Northeastern University who teaches race and gender studies.

Ms. Powell was born in 1921 in Milton, Mass., and in, 1944, after completing basic training at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., she was sent, as some other black nurses were, to tend to German prisoners of war in Florence, Ariz.

“I know the story of how they met,” said Chris Albert, 59, the youngest son of Elinor and Frederick Albert. “It was in the officers’ mess hall, and my father was working in the kitchen. He kind of boldly made his way straight for my mother and said: ‘You should know my name. I’m the man who’s going to marry you.’”

Frederick Karl Albert was born in 1925 in Oppeln, Germany. “He volunteered for the paratroops to impress his father, who served in WWI,” Mr. Albert said. “His father was an engineer and not really interested in his children. My dad ended up getting captured in Italy.”…

…The American military officially ended segregation after WWII, but for the Alberts, the issue of race would resurface throughout their lives. Their unlikely romance resulted in Stephen’s birth in December 1946. After Frederick was able to return to the United States, he and Elinor married on June 26, 1947, in Manhattan.

“I would say the first 10 years for my parents were a struggle to find some kind of economic security and a safe haven for an interracial family,” said Chris Albert, who plays the trumpet with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

“They moved to Boston and my father worked several jobs,’’ he said. “At some point, he decided it was best if they moved to Göttingen, Germany, where his parents lived. He could work for his father’s cement manufacturing business.”

But Kristina Brandner, 70, a niece of Frederick Albert, said life in Germany was difficult. “Göttingen is a small town,’’ she said. “My grandmother never had contact with black people so it was strange and uncomfortable for her with Elinor. Kids used to ask me how come there was a black woman living with us, and why is your cousin another color. Sometimes, I saw Elinor in the kitchen crying.”

In less than two years, Frederick, Elinor, Stephen and Chris, who was an infant, returned to the United States….

Read the entire article here.

Dr. Ralina Joseph and Transcending Blackness: From the New Millennium Mulatta to the Exceptional Multiracial

I Mix What I Like
2013-01-11

Jared A. Ball, Host and Associate Professor of Communication Studies
Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland

This is part one of our discussion with Dr. Ralina Joseph about her book, Transcending Blackness: From the New Millennium Mulatta to the Exceptional Multiracial.

Watch the video interview here.

What We Mean When We Say ‘Race Is a Social Construct’

The Atlantic
2013-05-15

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Senior Editor

In a world where Kevin Garnett, Harold Ford, and Halle Berry all check “black” on the census, even the argument that racial labels refer to natural differences in physical traits doesn’t hold up.

Andrew Sullivan and Freddie Deboer have two pieces up worth checking out. I disagree with Andrew’s (though I detect some movement in his position.) Freddie’s piece is entitled “Precisely How Not to Argue About Race and IQ.” He writes:

The problem with people who argue for inherent racial inferiority is not that they lie about the results of IQ tests, but that they are credulous about those tests and others like them when they shouldn’t be; that they misunderstand the implications of what those tests would indicate even if they were credible; and that they fail to find the moral, analytic, and political response to questions of race and intelligence.

I think this is a good point, but I want to expand it. Most of the honest writing I’ve seen on “race and intelligence” focuses on critiquing the idea of “intelligence.” So there’s lot of good literature on whether it can be measured, its relevance in modern society, whether intelligence changes across generations, whether it changes with environment, and what we mean when we say IQ. As Freddie mentions here, I had a mathematician stop past to tell me I needed to stop studying French, and immediately start studying statistics — otherwise I can’t possibly understand this debate.

It’s a fair critique. My response is that he should stop studying math and start studying history…

…Our notion of what constitutes “white” and what constitutes “black” is a product of social context. It is utterly impossible to look at the delineation of a “Southern race” and not see the Civil War, the creation of an “Irish race” and not think of Cromwell’s ethnic cleansing, the creation of a “Jewish race” and not see anti-Semitism. There is no fixed sense of “whiteness” or “blackness,” not even today. It is quite common for whites to point out that Barack Obama isn’t really “black” but “half-white.” One wonders if they would say this if Barack Obama were a notorious drug-lord.

When the liberal says “race is a social construct,” he is not being a soft-headed dolt; he is speaking an historical truth. We do not go around testing the “Irish race” for intelligence or the “Southern race” for “hot-headedness.” These reasons are social. It is no more legitimate to ask “Is the black race dumber than then white race?” than it is to ask “Is the Jewish race thriftier than the Arab race?”…

Read the entire article here.

Soledad O’Brien: ‘OK, white person, this is a conversation you clearly are uncomfortable with’

The Washington Examiner
2013-05-13

Paul Bedard

Soledad O’Brien, recently yanked from her morning show “Starting Point” on CNN, plans to continue her focus on racial issues and is charging that whites are afraid of dealing with the nation’s black-white division.

O’Brien, just named a distinguished visiting fellow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, told the school’s Institute of Politics that she’s often confronted by whites who want to take issue with her documentaries on race in America…

O’Brien is an award-winning correspondent who hosted and developed “Black in America,” one of CNN’s most successful international franchises.

Read the entire article here.