Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.
“But I’m black and I’m proud of being black. And I was born black and I will die black. And I’m proud of it. And I’m not going to make any excuses; [be]cause they don’t understand.” —United States Senator Kamala D. Harris
The other night I was out with a friend, and her friends, and their friends. You know, one of those evenings where you walk into the pub and realise you don’t know anyone. But seeing as this isn’t the first day of primary school and you can’t wail and cling to your mum’s leg, you have to suck it up, get a drink and start mingling.
The evening progressed and it seemed to be going well: small talk was made, jokes (and shots) were shared. On the dance floor, a new acquaintance leaned in all conspiratorial to tell me something about having slept with a guy at the bar. “Over there,” she said. “The half-caste guy.” The music was loud but there was no mistaking that ugly, old-fashioned phrase. I felt physically jarred, the blood rushing to my face. I usually hate confrontation – who doesn’t – but get a drink or two in me and I become altogether more argumentative…
Women and men of mixed heritage, especially black/white, are often called upon in media to provide an inoffensive face of diversity, a fetishized vision of exotic beauty or simplistically characterised as inherently confused halves of one thing or the other. The play #HashtagLightie – which recently sold out the Arcola Theatre, London before rehearsals had even begun – effortlessly defies these restrictions with a story that is relatable in its specificity and genuine in its relationships.
The show, written by Lynette Linton and directed by Rikki Beadle-Blair, centres on an Irish/Bajan family who become the targets of racial abuse on social media. Although issues of colourism and the impact of social media on young lives are not exactly new, #HashtagLightie interweaves these with a fresh look at the identities and perceptions of mixed-race women and men in British society…
The following is a script from “Lewis Hamilton” which aired on Dec. 13, 2015. Charlie Rose is the correspondent. Keith Sharman, producer.
There is nothing like Formula One in terms of global popularity, glamour and speed. The racing series is considered the pinnacle of motor sports. Most Americans haven’t heard of its biggest star — his name is Lewis Hamilton. Even if car races aren’t your thing, there’s still much to admire in Hamilton’s inspiring story of beating the odds and breaking through barriers. But if you do like speed…buckle up…because you’re about to experience the indescribable rush of driving one of the fastest race cars on the planet.
Lewis Hamilton: Nothing can really prepare you for when you get in the Formula One car. Knowing that you’re driving a multimillion-dollar car, and if you crash it it’s going to cost a lot of money, and they might not give you another chance, is scary…
…Worldwide, Formula One generated more than two billion dollars last season but remains a niche sport in the United States.
F1 executives hope Hamilton can change that.
They have never seen a star like him before.
Charlie Rose: How many black drivers in Formula One?
Lewis Hamilton: One.
Charlie Rose: Why is that?
Lewis Hamilton: Well, I don’t know. I think in the future there’ll be more.
Charlie Rose: You’re a role model?
Lewis Hamilton: I hope so….
Read the entire transcript here. Watch the interview here.
Photo by Karen Ta | The State Press
“People shouldn’t be uncomfortable seeing an interracial couple.” Illustration published on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017.
I believe we are undoubtedly the most progressive generation so far. This past weekend I went to see a film that reminded me of that.
“A United Kingdom” reminds us that it wasn’t too long ago that skin color was a barrier to overcome for some couples. In fact, it wasn’t until the year 2000 when the state of Alabama finally changed its decision and lifted the ban on the right to an interracial marriage in the state.
Just 55 years ago, Arizonarepealed its ban on interracial marriages. Many of our parents lived to witness this repeal, yet we tend to forget this unfortunate part of history.
This film reminds us that a visual image today of an interracial couple is almost entirely a non-issue, certainly among millennials. As a college student at ASU, I witness many interracial couples daily, which is something past generations could not witness.
Despite the flaws our world has when it comes to race relations, I believe people, especially younger people and students, are leading the way to a more accepting society…
…Though the film addressed a racial issue, it wouldn’t address why people were so uncomfortable seeing an interracial couple.
Author and Time magazine contributor Arica L. Coleman Ph.D, said that this has been an on-going problem with the film industry.
She said she gives credit to the industry for highlighting important and progressive moments in historical films, but she also finds a problem in those same films for not presenting the full picture to the public when it comes down to race.
“They are problematic — they sell an illusion — and a problem I have with the topic of interracial marriage is the whole notion of using interracial marriage as a sign of progress with race, but it also can be used as an eraser,” she said. “Also, just like most of the time with Hollywood, it’s almost always the black man with the exotic white woman, which continues to show that the lack for black women is still present.”…
Phil Coomes
Trudy and Barclay Patoir met during World War Two at a time when mixed-race relationships were still taboo. More than 70 years later they reveal the obstacles they had to overcome to stay together.
When Trudy Menard and Barclay Patoir told friends and family they were going to get married, no-one thought it was a good idea – because Trudy was white and Barclay was black.
“When I told them at work they thought I was daft marrying a black man. They all said, ‘It won’t last you know,’ because it was a mixed-race marriage,” says Trudy.
“I think some people thought I was marrying beneath myself.”…
Kamila and her ‘slightly coloured’ siblings in the 1960s.
Too Black for the adoption agencies but not Black enough for the political campaigners. On growing up an adoptee of mixed heritage in Britain.
Times have changed. When I was a child in sixties’ Britain there was no Jessica Ennis, Jackie Kay, Chuka Umunna or Lewis Hamilton. Mixed heritage role models were thin on the ground: we saw film stars like Merle Oberon, or singers such as Bob Marley, but I can’t remember seeing any British role models. Now people of mixed parentage are everywhere, although it was not until the 2001 Census that we became ‘official’. In that year there were 677,177 of us. By 2020 it is estimated that 1.24 million people in the UK will be of mixed parentage.
In the fifties when I was born, unmarried pregnant women were encouraged to give their babies up for adoption. I, along with my three siblings, was one of them. However, the adoption agency files revealed what a headache we posed to them. We were not adoption material. ‘Baby is slightly coloured and adoption is impossible’ was the phrase written in my sister Ellen’s adoption papers.
We were all different ethnicities: our fathers from Asia or Africa, our mothers white. My mother was a young Swiss au pair working in London; my father an Indian engineering student. How they met I shall never know but I liked to think about them learning to jive at the Hammersmith Palais…
In director Amma Asante’s epic political romance A United Kingdom, David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike star as Seretse and Ruth Khama, the interracial royal couple who stunned the world when they fought to rule the country that would become the Republic of Botswana. The story’s a wildly interesting history lesson on African poverty, the rise of apartheid in the late 1940s and Britain’s passive role in separating Botswana’s blacks from whites. But here all that complexity plays more Disney than drama, with a script from Guy Hibbert (Eye in the Sky) that turns love into a montage and politics into a trite cartoon of good vs. evil.
The couple lindy-hops through courtship and right into an engagement in the early scenes, which are set to an American jazz soundtrack. They first lock eyes at a dance in London, where he’s a law student and she’s an office worker. In real life, the two met secretly for a year before Seretse even got the nerve to ask, “Do you think you could love me?” But the script ramming right through the early romance and into the marriage leaves so many open questions about the characters’ love; as portrayed in the film, they barely know one another when Ruth decides she’s going to move to Africa to be Seretse’s queen.
Against the wishes of their families — and the British and South African governments — Seretse and Ruth marry and travel to Bechuanaland so that he can ascend the throne and use his education to help his people. Soon after their arrival comes one of the film’s most poignant moments: Seretse’s aunt Ella (Abena Ayivor), who’s the current queen, drills right into the thin white woman before her to ask if Ruth knows what it would mean to be a mother to the nation and its predominantly black citizens. Ella has a good point: At a time when white people are swarming into Bechuanaland to turn black citizens into servants, how good an idea is a white queen? Later, Ruth sits in her room, practicing British queen skills such as waving and smiling, while the tribe’s women break their backs outside to get food to their families. But A United Kingdom doesn’t fully explore this cultural distance; the film’s structure requires that Ruth be quickly accepted into the tribe, so the story can move on to Britain’s treachery…
The story follows Ella, a mixed race 16-year-old who is popular and addicted to social media. Her Youtube channel gives make-up tips, opinions, and videos of her eccentric family. However, one of her videos goes viral and Ella finds herself in the centre of a social media storm that results in a family fallout and changes her perception of identity and beauty…
Born in Zanzibar and raised in Britain, Lubaina Himid makes work about everything from slavery to Thatcher to the cotton trade. Now in her 60s, she’s finally getting the recognition she deserves
Lubaina Himid was just four months old when her father died. It was 1954 and her Blackpool-born mother decided to leave their home in Zanzibar and head back to Britain, where she brought her daughter up as a Londoner. Himid would not return to the place of her birth for 43 years…
