Mixed Race Studies

Representing Mixed Race in Jamaica and England from the Abolition Era to the Present by Sara Salih (review)

Eighteenth-Century Fiction
Volume 25, Number 4, Summer 2013
pages 777-780
DOI: 10.1353/ecf.2013.0025

Nicole N. Aljoe, Assistant Professor of English
Northeastern University

Sarah Salih, Representing Mixed Race in Jamaica and England from the Abolition Era to the Present (London, New York: Routledge, 2010)

Sara Salih offers a welcome and rigorous analysis of the relationships among the development of the law, notions of subjectivity, and discourses of race and sexuality in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in England and Jamaica. This book makes a productive contribution to ongoing critical conversations about the complexity and nuance of race in the British past by responding explicitly to David Scott’s suggestion that we consider more carefully the stories we assume we know, particularly about slavery. One such story concerns the mulatto and his/her tragic outsiderness as exemplified in the trope of “tragic mulatto.” Numerous scholars, including Werner Sollors and Eve Raimon, have explored this trope within the context of the United States, and Salih’s study builds on this work and extends it by considering representations of mixed-race individuals in the British-Jamaican context. In addition, by making clear the different ways in which the mulatto was treated and represented outside of the US context—for example, noting that neither interracial sex nor marriage were ever outlawed in Jamaica or England, unlike in the United States—Salih’s study offers a corrective to uncritical conflation of the distinct cultures of enslavement. Most specifically, her study reveals the ways in which, in the British-West Indian context, although mulattos were frequently figured as being inside particular aspects of national and subject-constituting discourses—mulattos could “pass” for white, and in the eighteenth century they could legally petition to be designated as white—they were simultaneously and persistently represented as isolated and “firmly outside the heterorepronormative narrative paradigm” (125).

This book is invested in illustrating the “processes of normalization and the consolidation of norms” about the legal status, nature, and character of mixed race individuals in Jamaica and England from the eighteenth century through the twentieth century by considering cultural representations alongside juridical and colonial documents. Salih argues that all of these texts—the fiction, nonfiction, legal writings, and judicial statutes—contribute dialogically to creating and sustaining societal norms and subjects. The study traces the ways in which these texts inform the legal identity “mulatto” that eventually comes to be defined and understood as a cultural/political identity. In tracing this movement, she is “less interested in ‘race’ as interiority and affect than in the specific ways in which it is produced and enacted legally and performatively” (123–24). And although the study scrupulously sets itself against those studies of race in the eighteenth century that deal with questions and issues of identity, it is best seen as a complement to these other studies. In particular, by attending to the ways in which discussions of the mulatto were also discussions of interracial sex, Salih illuminates the impact of sexuality on notions of race.

Salih begins her close readings with Marly, an 1828 novel about a Jamaican slave plantation. After providing an intriguing reading of the relationship between fiction, the law, and power grounded in the novel’s initial image of a slave driver exchanging his whip for a pen (56), Salih outlines how the novel, by offering fiction as well as history in its description of life on the plantation, contributes to the creation of societal norms. In so doing, according to Salih, novels can reveal “narrative investment in the disciplining of subjects” (57). For example, society wants mixedrace women to disappear, and hence they are novelistically relegated to the background. However, the novel Marly also reveals the complicated positioning of mixed-race individuals. Although women are relegated to the background, a mixed-race man is foregrounded in a chapter in which he offers a long harangue on how similar brown or mixed-race people are to whites and therefore should be allowed more freedoms in Jamaica (68–70). Although the brown man gets to proclaim his proximity to whiteness, at the end of the novel he too is isolated like the brown women, Salih argues, and is placed in a non-reproductive category.

The study then moves to a reading of The Woman of Colour (1808), edited by Lyndon Dominique for Broadview Press (2007). Salih addresses how in the novel, despite a positive representation of Olivia (its interracial character), she too is isolated and unmarried…

When Jim Crow Met John Bull: Black American Soldiers in World War II Britain

I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd.
1987
300 pages
220 x 140cm
Hardback ISBN: 9781850430391

Graham Smith

An important chapter in the history of World War II is here explored for the first-time—how the arrival of the black troops strained war-time Anglo-American relations, upset elements of the British political and military establishments and brought Britons face to face with social and sexual issues they had never faced before. This book, drawing on previously unpublished new material, covers an important but neglected dimension of diplomatic relations in World War II. As well as providing critical insights into the thinking of many leading political and military figures of the period, it paints an original and invaluable portrait of wartime Britain and its confrontation with the issue of race. It is a tale rich in human dignity—and in instances of tragicomic hypocrisy.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• 1. Prologue: The Great War – Black Americans in Europe
• 2. The Early War Years: First Encounters
• 3. Attitudes and Anxieties: Jim Crow and the British Government
• 4. Jim Crow in Britain: The US Army and Racial Segregation
• 5. Novelty to Familiarity: The Home Front
• 6. Dixie Invades Britain: The Racial Violence
• 7. The Watchdogs: Jim Crow Under Close Scrutiny
• 8. ‘No Mother, No Father, No Uncle Sam’: Sex and Brown Babies
• 9. The Black GI in Britain: Reflections and Results
• Notes
• A Select Bibliography
• Index

Two worlds… One reflection

IDEATE: The Undergraduate Journal of Sociology
University of Essex, Colchester, England
Volume 10, Summer 2013
19 pages

Yasmin Currid

Introduction

I went through most of my childhood believing that my family was just the same as everybody else’s. I did not realise that there was something slightly different about the dynamics and the structure of my family as opposed to, I suppose, what people would call a “normal” family. Even now, I still consider my family to be just like anyone else’s… Why should the colour of our skin matter? Let me start from the beginning: my mum and my biological father, Jimmy, broke up before I was born. Then when I was a few months old she met Jason, the man I call my dad. They eventually got married and had my two brothers, Kyshon and Kofi. The only thing that happens to be slightly different about this situation is that I have a multiracial family. Both my mum and I are white, my dad is black, and my two brothers are mixed race, so half of my extended family is white and half is black. I do not consider the dynamics of my family to be weird, if anything, I believe I am lucky to be brought up in a multiracial family- I get to experience the best of both… Although I am sure not everyone sees it that way.

I do not remember exactly how old I was when I started questioning the difference in our skin colours, all I know is that I was a lot older than you would expect. I assume it just never occurred to me as it was not as big a deal as some people would make out. We were still a family. My dad was still my dad, and my brothers were still my brothers, no matter what we looked like from the outside and how much we differed in skin colour. However, what I do remember, down to the very last minute detail, is where we were and exactly how I phrased it. I know we were in the car, my dad was driving and I was in the back, between my two brothers and before I knew what I was saying, I just blurted it out “Why is dad black and I’m white?” The answer, however, I do not remember…

…It is quite difficult because there is no one else I know or have even heard of who has the same type of family dynamic as I have. When I type “inter-racial families” into Google, thousands of websites come up advertising a black and white couple who have mixed race kids… But never families where a white child has a white mum, a black dad and mixed race brothers. The lack of sociological research in this particular field has challenged me in finding different sociologist’s ideas I can use to analyse my own experience of belonging to an inter-racial family. Due to this lack of research I have had to look at specific sociologists, such as Mills, Goffman and Cooley, and try to adapt and apply their theories and perspectives to my particular situation regardless of whether they intended it in the same way which I have interpreted it. Throughout my journal, I am going to attempt to take my family biography and link it to the larger social structures within society…

Read the entire article here.

CERS hosts Critical Mixed Race Studies postgraduate symposium

School of Sociology and Social Policy
Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies
University of Leeds
2013-08-08

Peter Edwards, Faculty Web Development Officer

Mixing Matters: Critical Intersectionalities

The Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies (CERS) held its first interdisciplinary, international postgraduate symposium on the 18th May 2013 entitled ‘Mixing Matters: Critical Intersectionalities.’ This symposium aimed at engaging with ideas from the field of Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) was the first of its kind in the UK and enabled national, international and Leeds based postgraduate students to present their research in this dynamic field. The debates within CMRS have been circulating for some time within various disciplines but which simultaneously have remained marginal within broader studies on ethnicity and ‘race’. Furthermore, the debates have largely been centred on the United States context and not taking into account the globality of mixed-race identity which varies across time and space, an idea which the keynote speaker (Rebecca King O’Riain) discusses in her book Global Mixed Race. This symposium was developed in response to this marginalisation focusing on describing and analysing mixed-race identities in both the UK and international contexts.

It was well attended and received by staff and students from within the faculty and beyond. There were a significant number of non-academic participants who travelled from far afield to engage with the day’s presentations and debates. Dr Rebecca King O’Riain (National University of Ireland, Maynooth) gave a keynote addressing the importance of expanding mixed-race studies beyond US borders and explored the dynamics of mixing in Zambia, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Brazil, Germany and Japan, among other locations. Dr. Shirley Tate (University of Leeds) who conceived of the idea of the symposium gave a second keynote on the mixed race question in regards to Black beauty.

The symposium was also comprised of two panels with papers on a variety of topics which reflect the diversity of research interests in the field:

• Theory, experience and activism in CMRS
• Mixed race male experiences in UK education
• Chicano epistemology
• Mixed-heritage in fostering and adoption policy
• Bio-power and the politicisation of mixed-race in East Africa
• Dougla identities in Trinidad
• The influence of hip hop on mixed-race identity…

…Speakers: Emma Dabiri, Remi Salisbury, Veronica Cano, Julia Koniuch-Enneoka, Angelica Pesarini, Kav Raghunandan, and Jenn Sims

Read the entire report here.

Still policing the crisis? Black and black and white mixed ‘race’ Seeking Interviewees]

University of Leeds
Leeds, West Yorkshire, England
2013-08-12

Lisa J. Long, Doctoral Researcher
School of Sociology and Social Policy

I am a Ph.D. Researcher at the University of Leeds. I am interested in understanding the experiences that black or black and white mixed ‘race’ people have had when they have found themselves in contact with the police, either as a victim of crime, when reporting a crime, as a crime suspect or in the course of routine policing enquiries e.g. stop and search. As part of my research I would like to interview black and black and white mixed ‘race’ people across all age groups (16+), both men and women with an opinion or view about policing based on personal experience.

In order to be able to take part you will need to live in the West Yorkshire area and have had experience of policing within this area.

If you would like more information about participating in the research please contact Lisa Long at ssljl@leeds.ac.uk.

Image Matters: Archive, Photography, and the African Diaspora in Europe

Duke University Press
2012
256 pages
118 photographs, 10 illustrations
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8223-5074-3
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8223-5056-9

Tina M. Campt, Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Director of the Africana Studies Program
Barnard College

In Image Matters, Tina M. Campt traces the emergence of a black European subject by examining how specific black European communities used family photography to create forms of identification and community. At the heart of Campt’s study are two photographic archives, one composed primarily of snapshots of black German families taken between 1900 and 1945, and the other assembled from studio portraits of West Indian migrants to Birmingham, England, taken between 1948 and 1960. Campt shows how these photographs conveyed profound aspirations to forms of national and cultural belonging. In the process, she engages a host of contemporary issues, including the recoverability of non-stereotypical life stories of black people, especially in Europe, and their impact on our understanding of difference within diaspora; the relevance and theoretical approachability of domestic, vernacular photography; and the relationship between affect and photography. Campt places special emphasis on the tactile and sonic registers of family photographs, and she uses them to read the complexity of “race” in visual signs and to highlight the inseparability of gender and sexuality from any analysis of race and class. Image Matters is an extraordinary reflection on what vernacular photography enabled black Europeans to say about themselves and their communities.

Narratives from a Nottingham council estate: a story of white working-class mothers with mixed-race children

Ethnic and Racial Studies
Volume 36, Issue 8 (August 2013)
Special Issue: Mothering Across Racialised Boundaries
pages 1342-1358
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2013.776698

Lisa McKenzie, Research Fellow, Faculty of Social Sciences
University of Nottingham

This paper introduces a group of white working-class women living on a council estate in the UK drawing on an ethnographic study conducted between 2005 and 2009, examining the impact of class inequality and a stigmatized living space in an ethnically diverse urban neighbourhood. All of the women are mothers and have mixed-race children; they reside on the St Ann’s estate in Nottingham, an inner-city neighbourhood that has been subject to poor housing, poverty and unemployment for many generations. The women who live on this estate say that they suffer from negative stereotypes and stigmatization because of the notoriety of the estate, because they are working class and because they have had sexual relationships with black men. However, there is a sense of connectedness to the estate and there are strong cultural meanings that are heavily influenced by the West Indian community. This paper then highlights the importance of place when focusing upon families, class inequality and intercultural relationships.

Read or purchase the article here.

Akala: Dynamite by any other name…

The Guardian
The Observer
2013-06-01

Kate Mossman

Rapper, adapter of Shakespeare and brother of Ms Dynamite, Akala is on a mission to correct a few misconceptions

A few weeks ago in these pages, Birmingham rapper Lady Leshurr asked why there had been no high-profile female rappers in the UK since Ms Dynamite. Akala seems a good person to consult – one, because he’s her brother, and two, because you can ask Akala just about anything and you’ll get a pretty comprehensive answer. In the course of 68 minutes in a London community centre under the Westway, he talks about 16th-century explorers, Biggie Smalls, the universities of 13th-century Timbuktu, tai chi, the Black Wall Street of Oklahoma, the African city portraits of Olfert Dapper, Eminem, peanuts, Napoleon’s generals, traffic lights and golf. But back to Ms Dynamite.

“I remember the Daily Mail wrote an article about my sister at the time,” he says, “and essentially their argument was, ‘Well, she’s not really black, is she – she’s quite clever and she’s got a white mum!’ It was so funny the way they tried to co-opt us. Remember that big story about Bob Marley and his ‘white dad’ last year? He was unequivocally black power, but he’s rewritten as this fun-loving Rasta. Mark Duggan [the Tottenham man shot by police in August 2011] was also mixed race, but no one’s ever going to co-opt Mark Duggan!”…

Read the entire article here.

Mental health service use by adolescents of Indian and White origin

Archives of Disease in Childhood
Published online: 2013-07-29
DOI: 10.1136/archdischild-2013-303772

Panos Vostanis, Professor of Psychology
University of Leicester

Nadzeya Svirydzenka, Research Assistant
Department of Psychology
University of Leicester

Pat Dugard, Independent Senior Statistician
King’s Lynne, United Kingdom

Swaran Singh, Professor of Social and Community Psychiatry
University of Warwick, Coventry

Nisha Dogra, Professor of Psychology
University of Leicester

Background Despite the available epidemiological evidence on the prevalence of mental health problems in childhood and adolescence, there is limited knowledge on whether there are differences in the level of need and service utilisation by young ethnic minority groups.

Methods Adolescents of 13–15 years from nine schools in two English cities in which children of Indian ethnicity were over-represented (n=2900), completed rating scales on different types of mental health problems, contacts with services and informal supports.

Results Indian adolescents scored significantly lower on general mental health and depression symptoms. They were also less likely than White adolescents to self-report having mental health problems, even for a similar level of need. Among those with mental health scores within the clinical range, Indian adolescents were less likely to have visited specialist services. Instead, they were more likely to first approach family members, teachers or general practitioners.

Conclusions Rather than a blanket approach being applied to policy and service planning to meet the needs of diverse communities of young people, more specific evidence needs to be gained about patterns of referrals of minority groups and their strategy of accessing supportive adults.

Read or purchase the article here.

Burton Mixed Heritage Oral Hers/His story project

East Staffordshire Rights & Equality Council (ESREC)
July 2012
39 pages

The mixed heritage community is the fastest growing ethnic minority group in the UK and is predicted to be the largest minority ethnic group by 2020.The ethnicity category Mixed was first introduced in the 2001 UK Census, where 677,177 people classified themselves as of mixed race, making up 1.2% of the UK’s population.

The origin of mixed heritage people in this country started en masse in the early 1940s when the USA entered World War II. Some of the American soldiers who were stationed in the UK were black and whilst here formed relationships with local people resulting in the birth of children. When they returned to the USA many left their families behind.

In 1948 the UK government was heavily involved on its national rebuilding programme following the war. People were invited to the UK from the Commonwealth. It is well documented that many came on the SS Windrush from the Caribbean, with others coming from India, Pakistan and other Commonwealth countries.

The Burton Mixed Heritage Project recognises the importance of capturing and preserving the experiences of the 1st, 2nd, and the current generation of mixed heritage people in East Staffordshire and surrounding areas.

We recorded the interviews and divided them into 3 categories to show their experiences for the benefit of future generations.

1. The G.I. Generation (1941-1964)

This generation is descended from foreign mainly Black soldiers who were stationed in Burton and surrounding areas, who had children with the local residents. It also includes the Windrush generation.

2. The Beat Generation (1965-1984)

These are the children born from the union of different cultures i.e. people from the Caribbean or the Asian sub-continent joining with people from the UK

3. The Y Generation (1985 -present)

Young people who were born in the late 80s/early 90s and are of mixed heritage.

Our aim is to empower, educate and inform people of mixed heritage communities, and society at large about their experiences and journey. This DVD aims to show you that “On every corner there is a story”

Read the entire report here.