Mixed Race Studies

Black U.K. beauty magazine accidentally put a white model on its cover. Apologies followed.

The Washington Post
2016-11-22

Travis M. Andrews, Staff Writer

Emily Bador is a white woman. She is not, therefore, a black woman. Normally, that wouldn’t be news worth reporting, mostly because it isn’t news.

But her race came into play recently due to the new cover of Blackhair magazine, a British glossy that bills itself as “an international bi-monthly magazine for the style conscious black woman. Packed with 100’s of hair inspirations, fashion, lifestyle and celebrity interviews, we are one of the leading publications for women of colour in Europe.”

The magazine, which generally if not always features black or mixed-race models, used her photograph for the cover of its December/January issue. The editors have admitted they didn’t know she was white…

…According to Blackhair’s editor, Keysha Davis, who wrote a note on the magazine’s Facebook page, the publication runs photographs they receive from PR companies and salons. They specifically request that these photographs be of black or mixed-race women…

Read the entire article here.

White Model Apologizes After Her Photo Shows Up On Blackhair Magazine

The Huffington Post
2016-11-21

Zeba Blay

“I’m very sorry this cover was taken away from a black woman,” she wrote.

Blackhair magazine had some explaining to do after mistakenly featuring a white model rocking afro-textured hair on the cover of its latest issue. The publication, known for offering hair tips and tricks for black and mixed-race women, was called out by a white model Emily Bador who says an old modeling photo of her was used without her permission for the December/January issue of the mag.

In an Instagram post published on Sunday, Bador shared a photo of the cover, writing in a caption that she “deeply and sincerely” apologized for the picture. Bador explained to her over 64,000 followers that the image had been taken three or four years ago when she was around 15 years old, before she had learned about the concept of cultural appropriation and the stigma many black women receive for wearing their hair in its natural state…

Read the entire article here.

2 Tone legend Pauline Black to get honorary degree from Coventry University

The Coventry Telegraph
2016-11-21

Catherine Lillington

Pauline Black

“It’s really important women don’t reach the menopause and go away and knit”

Ska and 2 Tone legend Pauline Black is being honoured by Coventry University for her support of the city’s music scene.

The lead singer of The Selecter will get an honorary degree following a career that has seen her create platinum-selling albums and an award-winning autobiography.

She will be among 6,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students receiving their degrees, 45 years after she moved to Coventry to study at Lanchester Polytechnic…

Pauline Black performing at The Tic Toc Club in Coventry in July 1981

Read the entire article here.

The New American Face

The Atlantic
2016-11-21

James Hamblin, Senior Editor

The least and most attractive male faces, based on statistical models.

Leaders are stoking human tendencies toward tribalism—but this instinct can be overcome more easily than once thought.

Since the election of Donald Trump, President Barack Obama has shifted into a prophylactic stance. He is warning that the world is complex, not a simple collection of binaries where things are either completely fantastic or the absolute worst.

Obama sees, rather, an ecosystem, a global community where borders are increasingly illusory, where prosperity for one economy means prosperity for others. Still this is a difficult concept to impart even to competitive students or coworkers, much less a population of seven billion. Recounting how he explained the election outcome to his daughters, Obama said in The New Yorker this week, “This is not mathematics; this is biology and chemistry. These are living organisms, and it’s messy.”

If biology is messy, neurobiology is a dumpster filled with smaller dumpsters, all ablaze. We are competitive by nature, as a matter of survival, and this tendency is easily goaded into hate…

Read the entire article here.

Sophie Okonedo Is Queen Margaret in ‘The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses’ (On PBS Dec 11-25)

Shadow And Act
2016-11-17

Sophie Okonedo

“The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses” is a lavish three-part follow-up to the BAFTA winning “The Hollow Crown,” which aired in 2013 on THIRTEEN’s “Great Performances.”

The first series of “The Hollow Crown” covered the so-called Henriad comprising Richard II, Henry IV, Parts I and II and Henry V. Now, “The Wars of the Roses” – which comes to “Great Performances” on three consecutive Sundays beginning December 11 at 9 p.m. – picks up the story with epic film versions of Henry VI (in two parts) and Richard III…

The new series aired to great acclaim on the BBC this May. A Neal Street co-production with Carnival/NBCUniversal and THIRTEEN for BBC Two, the series was filmed in locations around the UK. Award-winning director Dominic Cooke (former Artistic Director of The Royal Court theatre) makes his TV directorial debut with the three films.

The series features some of the UK’s finest acting talent including Sophie Okonedo who has been cast to play Queen Margaret.

Okonedo joins Benedict Cumberbatch as Richard III, Tom Sturridge as Henry VI, Hugh Bonneville as Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, Judi Dench as Cecily, Duchess of York, Sally Hawkins as Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, and Keeley Hawes as Queen Elizabeth…

Read the entire article here.

How Trevor Noah went from biracial youth in S. Africa to leading light on U.S. TV

The Washington Post
2016-11-12

Karen Heller, National Features Writer

“Daily Show” host Trevor Noah has a new memoir about growing up mixed race in apartheid South Africa. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

NEW YORK — Trump. Trump. Clinton. The Obamas dancing like dorks.

Such is the stuff of a recent pre-election morning meeting at “The Daily Show” headquarters. Trevor Noah enters, water bottle and orange in hand, and wedges himself in among the writers, his back never pressing against the sofa.

“Can we talk about Brexit?” he asks. “I find Brexit fascinating, because in the U.S., people see it as done and dusted.”

They talk of Brexit, how British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson resembles a Muppet. But then the discussion swiftly returns to the steady drip of Trump, Trump, Trump.

You may hire a guy for his global perspective, but comedy comes back to the familiar fast.

Last year, after a 16-year reign, Jon Stewart was replaced by a young comedian who is nothing like him: foreign, biracial, cool, GQ-photogenic and utterly unknown to Americans, having appeared on the show only three times before being tapped as the successor….

Read the entire article here.

‘Loving’ inspires a DIY Film Festival of miscegenation films and shows you need to see…

CinemaInMind: Thinking about film… and other stuff
2016-11-03

Tim Cogshell, Critic At Large
Alt Film Guide

You don’t need to wait for the local art house to put on a themed film festival. Tim Cogshell, film critic for KPCC’s Filmweek and Alt Film Guide, and who blogs at CinemaInMind, is producing a series of DIY Film Festivals for Off-Ramp listeners to throw in the comfort of their own homes…

Read the entire article here.

From Raised Eyebrows To Raised Curtains: Rachel Atkins Tackles Racial Identity

KUOW.org 94.9 FM: Seattle News & Information
Seattle, Washington
2014-02-27

Marcie Sillman, Arts and Culture Reporter

Actresses Kia Pierce and Marquicia Dominguez in Rachel Atkins’ play, “Black Like Us.” Credit Courtesy of Annex Theatre/Shane Regan

When Rachel Atkins was 7, she and her sisters got a new stepfather. Atkins loved this man, but when she and her family went out in public, they raised a lot of eyebrows.

“My stepdad, who raised me, was black,” says Atkins. “We were three little white Jewish girls in New Jersey, when multi-racial families were not that common. We would get asked all the time, ‘Who’s that guy with your family?’ And we’d say, ‘That’s our dad.'”

Decades later, Atkins’ experience was part of the impetus behind her new play “Black Like Us,” currently having its world premiere production at Seattle’s Annex Theater.

“Black Like Us” is about two black sisters in 1950s Seattle. Feisty Maxine is attracted to the nascent Civil Rights movement; lighter-skinned Florence is in love with a white man. Following her heart, Florence passes herself off as white and estranges herself from her entire family…

Read the entire article here. Listen to the interview here.

Artist, surfer Kip Fulbeck to exhibit work at MSU

Times Record News
Wichita Falls, Texas
2016-11-03

Richard Carter, Special to the Times Record News

Kip Fulbeck

Kip Fulbeck grew up in Hawaii as the child of a Chinese mother and a white American father.

In elementary school, children would come up to him and ask, “Who are you? What are you?” It was an experience that stuck with him, said Midwestern State University art professor Gary Goldberg, and as Fulbeck developed as an artist, he reflected on those experiences.

An exhibit of Fulbeck’s artwork, “Hapa,” opened earlier this week at the Juanita and Ralph Harvey Art Gallery in the MSU Fain Fine Arts Center. The exhibit of photographic works runs through Dec. 2.

Fulbeck will be at a reception at the gallery from 3-5 p.m. Nov. 11 and will then lecture at 7 p.m. that evening as part of the MSU Artist Lecture Series in Akin Auditorium…

Read the entire article here.

EXCLUSIVE: Ruth Negga on How Feeling Alien Inspired Her Oscar-Worthy Performance and the Power of ‘Loving’

Entertainment Tonight
2016-11-06

John Boone

Photo: Getty Images

Ruth Negga may go from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to the Academy Awards, which is no easy feat even for a Marvel superhero. The 34-year-old actress may be most recognizable for her comic book fare — she also appeared in Warcraft: The Beginning and currently stars on AMC’s Preacher — but that very well may change because of Loving, a small, quiet film centered on the landmark court case that legalized interracial marriage. The film isn’t actually about the case, though, it’s about the Lovings behind Loving v. Virginia. What does it mean to her to get Oscar buzz for this movie?

“That people will know who Mildred and Richard Loving were,” she explained. “It surprised me that more people don’t know about them, because I think they’re a couple that America should be extraordinarily proud of. The world should be proud of.”…

Read the entire article here.