The Ordinary Conception of Race in the United States and Its Relation to Racial Attitudes: A New Approach

Posted in Articles, Media Archive, Philosophy, Social Science, United States on 2012-04-15 21:27Z by Steven

The Ordinary Conception of Race in the United States and Its Relation to Racial Attitudes: A New Approach

Journal of Cognition and Culture
Volume 9, Issue 1 (2009)
pages 15-38
DOI: 10.1163/156853709X414610

Joshua Glasgow, Lecturer of Philosophy
Sonoma State University
also Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington.

Julie L. Shulman, Assistant Professor of Pyschology
Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California

Enrique G. Covarrubias

Many hold that ordinary race-thinking in the USA is committed to the ‘one-drop rule‘, that race is ordinarily represented in terms of essences, and that race is ordinarily represented as a biological (phenotype- and/or ancestry-based, non-social) kind. This study investigated the extent to which ordinary race-thinking subscribes to these commitments. It also investigated the relationship between different conceptions of race and racial attitudes. Participants included 449 USA adults who completed an Internet survey. Unlike previous research, conceptions of race were assessed using concrete vignettes. Results indicate widespread rejection of the one-drop rule, as well as the use of a complex combination of ancestral, phenotypic, and social (and, therefore, non-essentialist) criteria for racial classification. No relationship was found between racial attitudes and essentialism, the one-drop rule, or social race-thinking; however, ancestry-based and phenotype-based classification criteria were associated with racial attitudes. These results suggest a complicated relationship between conceptions of race and racial attitudes.

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Family Dynamics Between Arab Muslim parents, Western Parents and Their Bi-ethnic Children

Posted in Dissertations, Family/Parenting, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Religion, Social Work, United States on 2012-04-15 15:28Z by Steven

Family Dynamics Between Arab Muslim parents, Western Parents and Their Bi-ethnic Children

California State University, Sacramemto
Spring 2011
75 pages

Yasmine Binghalib

THESIS Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in COUNSELING (Marriage, Family and Child Counseling)

Families made up of one an Arab Muslim parent, Western parent and their children were examined to find out what unique dynamics and issues they face. Bi-ethnic Arab and American participants completed a questionnaire about demographics and underwent an in-depth interview that explored their experiences as a bi-ethnic person and the dynamics within their families. Participants reported a variety of experiences, though certain themes were extrapolated from their responses. Participants either identified more strongly with their Western mother or their Middle Eastern father. Feelings of marginalization were identified as part of the bi-cultural Arab and American experience as well as some identity confusion. Participants also reported that they felt unable to disclose as much information about their life to their Middle Eastern fathers as they did their American mothers.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • Acknowledgments
  • 1. INTRODUCTION
    • Introduction to the Research
    • Rationale for Research
    • Statement of the Problem
    • Definitions
  • 2. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
    • Introduction
    • Introduction to Arabs and Islam
    • Introduction to Anglo Americans
    • Family Life
    • Marriages
    • Parenting
    • Summary
  • 3. DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
    • Introduction
    • Purpose of the Study
    • Research Questions
    • Research Methods and Procedures
    • Sample Population
    • Research Design
    • Research Procedure
    • Analysis
    • Summary
  • 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
    • Introduction
    • Demographics of Participants
    • Family Characteristics
    • Summary
  • 5. DISCUSSION
    • Introduction
    • Summary of Study
    • Discussion
    • Limitations
    • Recommendations for Further Research
  • Appendix A. Informed Consent
  • Appendix B. Questionnaire
  • Appendix C. Interview Questions
  • References

Read the entire thesis here.

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Categorization of racial/ethnic identity for racialized and marginalized biracials in the mainland United States

Posted in Dissertations, Economics, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, United States, Women on 2012-04-15 00:36Z by Steven

Categorization of racial/ethnic identity for racialized and marginalized biracials in the mainland United States

California State University, Sacramento
Spring 2009
169 pages

Estrella Valdez

THESIS Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in SPECIAL MAJOR (Ethnic Studies)

There is no singular agreed-upon understanding of what it means to be identified as biracial in the mainland United States, especially when a person is the product of the union of two marginalized ethnicities. For decades, the hegemonic (white) group has set in place values and social forces that do not allow biracials to fully embrace all parts their ethnic identities. Marginalizing this group has not only led to a misunderstanding of their needs in social and institutional settings, but has caused confusion in the individual when they attempt to define who they are racially. This group of biracials is one of the fastest-growing segments of the United States population; they need to be understood and their needs met. In order to do this, changes in existing laws and socials forces must be addressed. Twelve women, all products of minority-minority unions, were interviewed for this study. Using a qualitative approach, biethnic/biracial participants used their own voices to offer first-hand accounts of their life experiences without persistent hegemonic influences or the influence of the researcher. An examination of the historical construction of race through miscegenation laws, the United States Census, existing studies on biracial self-identfication was also used to determine how and what processes and social conditions impact identity formation. What was ultimately learned from the results of the study is that social class and economics together-not just race serve as the catalyst for the division of society. Participants who had a more stable economic base were more comfortable with their racial self-identity; participants who were raised by a single parent did not have a very stable economic base and struggled more in the formation of their racial self-identity.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • Acknowledgments
  • List of Tables
  • List of Figures
  • 1. INTRODUCTION
    • Statement of the Problem
    • Racial Designations
    • Definition of Terms
  • 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
    • Historical Construction of Race
      • Subjugation of People of Color
    • Relationship of Identity Formation in the United States
      • Literature Supporting the Role and Rule of Hypodescent as an Influence in Identity Construction
      • Literature Supporting the Effect of Miscegenation Laws as an Influence in Racial Identity Construction
      • Literature Supporting the Effect of the United States Census as an Influence in Racial Identity Construction
    • The Construction of Identity Formation
      • Literature Supporting the Influence of Social and Peer Forces in Racial Identity Construction
      • Literature Supporting the Influence of Parents as Forces in Racial Identity Construction
      • Literature Supporting the Individual as Force in Racial Identity Construction
    • Summary and Conclusion
  • 3. METHODOLOGY
    • Introduction and Overview
    • Research Design
      • Criteria
    • Research Questions and Guiding Questions
    • Constraints
    • Data Analysis
    • Summary and Conclusion
  • 4. PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
    • Narrative Portraits
      • Morar Suave
      • Mercy Lamb
      • Jenny Jones
      • Ella Bee
      • Hilary Mahler
    • Who Am I?
    • Discussion and Analysis
      • New Census Overview
      • The Multi-Group Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM)
      • Naming: Who am I?
      • How Do I Belong?
    • Where Do I Belong?
    • Where Do I fit With My Parents
    • Summary and Conclusion
  • 5. CONCLUSION
    • Reason for the Study
    • Next Steps
  • Appendix A. Research Subjects’ Bill of Rights
  • Appendix B. Informed Consent
  • Appendix C. Ethnic Self-Identification Inventory

Read the entire thesis here.

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City’s black founding father

Posted in Articles, History, Media Archive, Slavery, United States, Virginia on 2012-04-14 02:36Z by Steven

City’s black founding father

Decator Daily
Decatur, Alabama
2010-04-19

Deangelo McDaniel, Staff Writer

Minister, historian reconstructing life of ex-slave who became successful farmer

First in a two-part series

The Rev. Wylheme Ragland would like to spend one day with Robert Murphy.

So would local historian Peggy Allen Towns.

“Just one day,” Ragland said emphatically. “Just one day.”

Murphy, who died June 8, 1918, is one of Decatur’s black founding fathers, Towns and Ragland proclaim.

The former slave is buried in the Cowan section of Decatur City Cemetery and so are many of the secrets that would reveal the River City’s pre-Civil War and Reconstruction history.

Ragland, a United Methodist pastor at the church where Murphy was a trustee, and Towns are determined to reconstruct his life.

Doing so, they say, would fill significant gaps in Decatur’s history and dispel myths about the role of blacks and what happened here in 1864…

…But to understand and appreciate Murphy’s journey you have to go back to Virginia in 1795 when Mary, a slave, was born to the Kimble family.

Mary was his mother.

Traveling from Virginia through North Carolina, she arrived in the Tennessee Valley with the Kimble clan before 1820.

The slave-owning family purchased land in Trinity that extended to the Tennessee River.

In 1831, Murphy was born to Mary and his mother’s owner.

The Kimble family intermarried with the Murphys, who also owned a plantation on the Tennessee River. At some point before the Civil War, Mary and her son became the property of James Murphy

“Where was your home before and during the Civil War?” a government lawyer asked Murphy in 1906.

“About six miles from Decatur,” Murphy answered. “I belonged to James Murphy.”

As was the case for some mulatto (mixed-race) slaves, Murphy had extraordinary privileges for a slave, especially in 1864 when the Union Army fortified Decatur. He told the government he was able to travel between Decatur and Athens where his wife, Harriett, lived.

“My master did not care where I went so long as I did not go to be a soldier,” Murphy said in 1906…

Read the entire article here.

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Defining Mixed Race on Television: an Analysis of Barack Obama and Saturday Night Live

Posted in Barack Obama, Communications/Media Studies, Dissertations, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, United States on 2012-04-13 03:37Z by Steven

Defining Mixed Race on Television: an Analysis of Barack Obama and Saturday Night Live

California State University, Sacramento
Fall 2011
109 pages

Amanda Joy Davis


THESIS Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in COMMUNICATION STUDIES

This study uses a semiotic approach to textual analysis to examine social constructions of Barack Obama’s race in televised sketch comedy to discover how this construction contributes to the process of hegemony regarding society’s treatment of mixed race. Polysemy will be explored as a key contributing factor. The television program chosen for this study is Saturday Night Live (SNL); the program will be examined for visual and linguistic references to Obama and mixed race. The absence of mixed race references will also be analyzed for their contribution to the show’s overall message. This study argues that while SNL mentions mixed race, it ultimately adds to the hegemonic treatment of mixed race individuals. That is, it identifies Obama as monoracial, ignoring his mixed race heritage in favor of a neat, pre-existing category. While SNL had the opportunity to step outside of the typical dismissal of mixed race and defend their choice of actor to portray Obama, and refer to him as mixed race on a consistent basis, they opted instead to categorize him as monoracial. In doing so, SNL upholds the silent treatment given to the mixed race community, forcing a monoracial identification based on appearance, a hegemonic course of action.

Read the entire thesis here.

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Racial Classification in Assisted Reproduction

Posted in Articles, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Law, Media Archive, United States on 2012-04-12 21:24Z by Steven

Racial Classification in Assisted Reproduction

Yale Law Journal
Volume 118, Issue 8 (June 2009)
pages 1844-1898

Dov Fox, Academic Law Research Fellow
Georgetown University Law Center

This Note considers the moral status of practices that facilitate parental selection of sperm donors according to race. Arguments about intentions and consequences cannot convincingly explain the race-conscious design of donor catalogs. This prompts us to examine the expressive dimension of wrongful discrimination. Even practices marked by innocent motives and benign effects can give reason for pause when they needlessly entrench divisive assumptions about how people of a particular race think or act. Race-based differentiation in voting ballots, dating websites, and donor catalogs helps us to tease out the subtle normative tensions that racial preferences occasion in the contexts of citizenship, romance, and reproduction. These reflections suggest that racially salient forms of donor disclosure are pernicious social practices, which, while operating beyond the reach of the law, ought to be condemned as bad policy. The Note concludes by developing reproductive choice-structuring mechanisms that aim to balance respect for intimacy, autonomy, and expressions of racial identity with responsibility to work against conditions that divide us.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • I. Race and reproduction
    • A. Free Market Sperm Donation
    • B. Race-Conscious Donor Catalogs
  • II. the expressive dimension of racial discrimination
    • A. Discriminatory Intent and Discriminatory Effects
    • B. Discriminatory Expression
  • III. the moral logic of donor classification
    • A. The Social Meaning of Reproducing Race
    • B. The Architecture of Reproductive Choice
  • Conclusion

Introduction

Few choices matter more to us than those we make about the person with whom we will share a life or start a family. When having children involves assisted reproduction, selecting an egg or sperm donor occasions similar gravity. Such decisions typically bring to bear a patchwork of preferences about the particular physique, disposition, or values we find desirable in a romantic or procreative partner. To many, race matters. Just as some people in the search for companionship are looking for a significant other who shares their racial background, many of those who wish to become parents would prefer a child whose racial features resemble their own.

To help those who use donor insemination have a child of a particular race, sperm banks routinely catalog sperm donors on racial grounds. Twenty-three of the twenty-eight sperm banks operating in the United States provide aspiring parents with information about donor skin color, and the largest banks organize sperm donor directories into discrete sections on the basis of race. This practice of race-conscious donor classification invites us to rethink those racial preferences we commonly take for granted within intimate spheres of association. Insofar as race tends to reproduce itself within the family unit, race-conscious donor decisionmaking serves as a promising point of departure from which to ask whether and how our multiracial democracy should seek to preserve or diminish our collective self-identification with racial solidarities.

This Note proceeds in three parts. Part I describes the practice of racial classification by the world’s largest sperm bank. Part II argues that antidiscrimination arguments about bad intentions and bad consequences struggle to make sense of the race-conscious way that sperm banks design donor catalogs and online search functions. This suggests that certain classes of discriminatory behavior require a richer moral vocabulary than traditional frameworks allow. In these cases, we do well to examine what might be called the expressive dimension of wrongful discrimination, which turns on whether a rule or action instantiates public values that characteristically erode worthy forms of social recognition.

Part III works out the social meaning of racial classification in assisted reproduction by reference to similar classifications in the more familiar settings of voting and dating. These analogies help us to tease out the subtle normative tensions that racial preferences occasion in the contexts of citizenship, romance, and reproduction. This Part argues that racial classifications marked by innocent motives and benign effects give reason for pause when they needlessly entrench divisive assumptions about how people of a particular race think or act. These reflections suggest that racially salient forms of donor disclosure are pernicious social practices, which, while operating beyond the reach of the law, ought to be condemned as bad policy. The Note concludes by developing reproductive-choice-structuring mechanisms that aim to balance respect for intimacy, autonomy, and expressions of racial identity with responsibility to work against conditions that divide us.

Read the entire article here.

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Dealing with Diversity: Media Course Study Guide

Posted in Anthologies, Books, Media Archive, Social Science, Teaching Resources, United States on 2012-04-12 13:50Z by Steven

Dealing with Diversity: Media Course Study Guide

Kendall Hunt
2008
100 pages
Edition: 04
ISBN: 978-0-7575-4772-0

Author(s): Governors State University

This course was developed to help you recognize and appreciate the differences and the similarities among diverse groups and individuals in a multicultural society.

Living in the U.S.A. in the 21st century poses some of the most complex challenges this nation has ever faced. Our dependence on technology and fossil fuels, our addiction to 24/7 media, the changes in immigration, and the unparalleled quest to accumulate personal property have all created increased class stratification as well as segregation throughout our society. Global interdependence has brought the world closer together which means the impact of natural disasters, hunger, disease, and international conflicts now affects the whole planet.

Expected Student Outcomes

  1. Recognize the societal implications of our nation’s changing demographics.
  2. Explain the importance of understanding and respecting cultural differences.
  3. Develop strategies to promote intercultural awareness between different groups and among individuals within these groups.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Class I: Introduction and Overview
Explores our own individual ethnic/racial, religious, and cultural backgrounds.

Class 2: Social Interaction Model
Discusses how to use a social interaction model (SIM) that maps how humans interact in culturally diverse settings.

Class 3: Negotiating Cultural Communication
Explores some of the varieties of communication styles that exist in the U. S. as well as in other cultures around the world. Video guests: Dr. Brad Allison, Superintendent of Schools for Albuquerque, New Mexico; Professor Gordon Barry, University of California at Los Angeles. Studio Guests: Dr. Gloria Delany-Barmann and Dr. Lourdes Kuthy, Professors in the Department of Educational and Interdisciplinary Studies at Western Illinois University; Dr.juliaYang, University Professor of Psychology and Counseling at Governors State University.

Class 4: The Changing Face of America and the World
Concentrates on the rapidly changing demographic trends in the United States and around the world. Video inserts and guests: Plaza De Los Angeles; Professor Alexander Astin, University of California at Los Angeles; Professor Gary Orfield, Harvard University; Justino Petrarca, attorney.

Class 5: Immigration, Social Policy, and Employment
The history of immigration laws in the U.S. Video guests: Marian Smith, Chief Librarian at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS); Dr. Suarez-Orozco; David Duke, author; Professor Carlos Munozjr, University of California at Berkeley; Dr. Samuel Betances, Professor Emeritus at Northeastern Illinois University; Professor Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, Harvard University.

Class 6: Race: The World’s Most Dangerous Myth
Explores one of our nation’s most complex and pressing problems, the concept of race. Video guests: Dr. Michael Omi, Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California at Berkeley; racialist Arthur Jones of the American First Committee; Dr. Jerry Hirsch, Distinguished Professor in Psychology and Genetics at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana.

Class 7: Social Class Issues
The impact of social economics on the lives of families and individuals in the U.S; the plight of the homeless and what can be done about this growing problem. Video guests: Professor Lani Guinier of the Harvard Law School; Professor Peggy Macintosh,Wellesey University; Dr. Gary Orfield, Harvard University; Dr. Keri Kerber, Bridgewater State College, Connecticut. Studio guest: Dr. Mary Arnold, University Professor of Psychology and Counseling at Governors State University.

Class 8: Gender Issues
Examines the multifaceted issues surrounding gender in our society. Video inserts and guests: Video class discussion of Robert Bly’s book, Iron John; Professor Peggy Mclntosh.Wellesey College. Studio guest: Ms. Cindy Guerra from the National Organization ofWomen (NOW).

Class 9: Native Americans, Part I
Case study of Illinois’ Dickson Mounds Museum and the controversy surrounding it. In addition we hear from a variety of Native American students, professors, and administrators at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Video Inserts and guests: Dickson Mounds Museum in Lewiston, Illinois;John Wilmer, Barry Eagle and joe Martin, Professor Guy Senese, Professor Louise Lockard, Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff. Studio guests: PamAlfonzo, Menominee Cultural Center in Chicago, and Antonia Sheeny, California ManPower.

Class 11: Hispanic/Latino Americans, Part I
The variety of cultural groups that are classified under the Latino/Latina label. Population projections.Video guests: Dr. Samuel Betances, consultant and Professor Emeritus of Northeastern Illinois University; Professor Ronald Gallimore, University of California at Los Angeles; Professor Carlos Munoz Jr., University, of California at Berkeley; Professor Marcelo Suarez-Orozco of Harvard University. Studio guest: Dr. Estella Lopez of Northeastern Illinois University.

Class 12: Hispanic/Latino Americans, Part 2
Hostos Community College of the City University of New York and its unique programs serving a mainly Latino community in New York City. Video guests: Ethno-musician Jesus “CHUY” Negrette; students and faculty at Hostos Community College; New York City Councilman Guillermo Linares. Studio guest: Dr. Estella Lopez of Northeastern Illinois University.

Class 13: African Americans, Part I
Examines the changing demographic and socioeconomic data of this group and how these data compare to those of other groups in our society. Video inserts and guests: Birmingham Civil Rights Museum; Tamarjacoby, author. Studio guest: Gary Flowers, National Field Director for Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

Class 14: African Americans, Part 2
Issues of social justice, ethnocentrism, education. Video inserts and guests: Dr. Maulana Karenga, professor and chair, Department of Black Studies, California State University, Long Beach; Dr. Lisa Deipit, Professor of Education at Georgia State University; the rebuilding of the Amistad at Mystic, Connecticut. Studio guest: Gary Flowers, National Field Director for Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

Class 15: Asian Americans
The many cultures that fall under the label of Asian Americans; dynamics of current immigration policy; case study of Koreans in the Chicago, Illinois area. Video inserts and guests: Dr. Michael Omi, Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California at Berkeley; Korean American community in Chicago; Professors Kwang Chung Kim of Western Illinois University and Shin Kim of the University of Chicago. Studio guests: Gloria Chu, an immigrant from China; Dr. Jagan Lingamneni, an immigrant from India; and Peter Pham, an immigrant from Vietnam.

Class 16: Arab Americans
Arab Americans as the new ethnic villains in our media and folk knowledge; ignorance of most Americans about the actual contributions and history of the varied groups making up this category. Video guest: Dr. Jack Shaheen, consultant on the media images/portrayals of Arabs. Studio guest: Rafeeqjaber, President of the Islamic Association for Palestine.

Class 17: European Americans
The impact of language and religion nationally as well as globally. Video guests: Carol & Isadore Ryzak, Polish Americans. Studio guest: Dominic Candeloro, Italian American.

Class 18: Creole and Mixed Ethnic Americans
What happens to individuals when they mix with others of different ethnic groups. Video guests: Dr. Joseph Logsdon, University of New Orleans an authority on Creole culture;”Mixed race” couple Reggie and Diane Alsbrook, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Studio guests: “Mixed race” couple Jane Hu (Chinese) and Eric Skotmyr (Norwegian American).

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Professor Andrew Jolivétte to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Posted in Audio, Gay & Lesbian, Interviews, Live Events, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, United States on 2012-04-11 04:03Z by Steven

Professor Andrew Jolivétte to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (Founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival)
Hosted by Fanshen Cox, Heidi W. Durrow and Jennifer Frappier
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Episode: 252-Professor Andrew Jolivétte
When: Wednesday, 2012-04-11, 21:00Z (17:00 EDT, 14:00 PDT)

Andrew Jolivétte, Associate Professor of American Indian Studies
Center for Health Disparities Research and Training
San Fransisco State University

Dr. Jolivétte is a mixed-race studies specialist with a particular interest in Comparative Race Relations, the Urban Indian Experience, People of Color and Popular Culture, Critical Mixed Race Studies and Social Justice, Creole studies, Black-Indians, and mixed-race health disparities. He has been an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of San Francisco and a Researcher with the University of California, San Francisco on issues of racial violence among African American and Latino/a youth in the Bay Area.

Dr. Jolivétte is the edtitor and contributor to the recent anthology tittled, Obama and the Biracial Factor, which is the first book to explore the significance of mixed-race identity as a key factor in the election of President Obama and examines the sociological and political relationship between race, power, and public policy in the United States with an emphasis on public discourse and ethnic representation in his election.

Selected Bibliography:

Listen to the interview here.

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‘Perpetual others’: The role of culture, race, and nation in the formation of a mixed-race identity

Posted in Dissertations, Identity Development/Psychology, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2012-04-10 03:11Z by Steven

‘Perpetual others’: The role of culture, race, and nation in the formation of a mixed-race identity

University of Minnesota
June 2004
275 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3149283
ISBN: 9780496086603

Jacquetta Elizabeth Amdahl

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

The insistence upon a racial identity for multiracial blacks that is not singularly African American has been problematic throughout American history. The link between a racial identity that publicly acknowledges one’s ties to the African American community and the private ownership of one’s complete ancestry has been one that has been consistently tenuous for blacks of multiracial heritage. However, the first generation of openly multiracial African American artists have utilized their visibility in popular culture, as well as work they do within it, as spaces in which to forcefully assert this link. By consciously embracing and cultivating both public and private racial identities, they have distinguished themselves from the postracialist and even anti-black sentiments espoused by leaders and scholars within the Multiracial Category Movement (MCM).

This project explores the links between cultural expression, racial formation, and political agency through the investigation of the public lives and artistic expression of multiracial artists born between 1964 and 1970. These individuals were chosen because of their proximity to the Loving v. Virginia decision that overturned anti-miscegenation statutes. They are the first generation of officially recognized multiracial African Americans.

The project further examines the links between gender and race in representations of multiracial African Americans, as well as the history of the mixed race black population, and finally, the rise of the Multiracial Category Movement, and multiracial studies. Through these explorations, the inherently political nature of race is uncovered, and the public nature of racial identity is revealed. Finally, it concludes that the need for a fluid and expanded notion of African American identity, rather than the broadening of the definitions of whiteness, is the necessary answer to questions surrounding multiracial African American identities.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • Introduction: From African American to Multiracial? Racial Identity and Public Discourse
  • Chapter 1: Reports from the ‘Third Space’: The Music and Visual Presence of Mixed Race Artists in Popular Culture
    • The Hughes Brothers
    • Lenny Kravitz
    • Vin Diesel
  • Chapter 2:From Tragic Mulatto to Erotically Autonomous Black Woman: Halle Berry’s Journey to Monster’s Ball
  • Chapter 3: From Blue Vein Societies to Black Power: The ‘Mulatto Elite’ and the Black/White Binary
    • The Beginnings of Separate but Equal
    • The New Negro
    • The Quest to Solve the ‘American Dilemma’
  • Chapter 4: Beyond the Private Realm: The Multiracialist Struggle with Public Racial Identities
    • The Multiracial Category Movement (MCM)
    • Multiracial Studies
    • Postracialists
    • Critical Scholarship lhat Explores Multiracial Issues
  • Epilogue: Still ‘A Family Affair’: Implications of a Multiracial African American Identity

Purchase the dissertation here.

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Feminist Race Theorist and Sociologist to Lecture

Posted in Articles, Forthcoming Media, Social Science, United States on 2012-04-09 21:39Z by Steven

Feminist Race Theorist and Sociologist to Lecture

Hamilton College, Clinton New York
College News
2012-04-07

France Winddance Twine, professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will present a lecture on Tuesday, April 10, at 4:15 p.m., in Dwight Lounge, Bristol Campus Center. Twine will discuss “The Future of Anti-Racism & Racial Literacy After The Trayvon Martin Murder.” The lecture is free and open to the public.
 
In addition to editing several collections on race, class and gender, she has authored Outsourcing the Womb: Race, Class and Gestational Surrogacy in a Global Market and Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White Supremacy in Brazil, as well as A White Side of Black Britain

For more information, click here.

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