Mixed Race Studies

Seeing Baltimore’s Native Americans Clearly

BmoreArt
Baltimore, Maryland
2015-05-26

Cara Ober, Founding Editor

An Inverview with Ashley Minner about her Exquisite Lumbee Project, currently on display at Trickster Gallery

Ashley Minner is a community based visual artist from Baltimore, Maryland. She holds a BFA in Fine Art, an MA and an MFA in Community Art, which she earned at MICA. A member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, she has been active in the Baltimore Lumbee community for many years. Her involvement in her community informs and inspires her studio practice. Ashley is currently a PhD in American Studies student at University of Maryland College Park, where she is studying vernacular art as resistance in tri-racial isolate communities of the U.S. South and Global South…

Read the entire interview here.

Tonight: Syfy Premieres New Alien Terrorist Series, ‘Hunters’

Shadow and Act: On Cinema Of The African Diaspora
2016-04-11

Tambay A. Obenson

Britne Olford – HUNTERS

Tonight, Syfy premieres the first season of “Hunters” it’s new fantastical procedural thriller produced by Universal Cable Productions (in association with Valhalla Entertainment and Atlas Entertainment, respectively).

Britne Oldford (“American Horror Story“) plays the female lead in the 13-episode loose adaptation of Whitley Strieber’s best-selling novel “Alien Hunter,” which tells the story of a brilliant police detective’s obsessive investigation into the mysterious disappearance of his wife, which he eventually concludes wasn’t at all voluntary, even though it initially appears that way. Somebody is taking people and making it look like they walked out on their own. As the detective gets closer to the truth, his work comes to the attention of a Special Agent, a member of the most secret police unit on the planet, tasked with seeking out the most brilliant and lethal criminals, but from another world – alien terrorists. The Special Agent leads the detective into a hidden fantastical world of extraordinary challenge and danger, as they take on the most difficult police assignment ever known to man…

Read the entire article here.

Misty Copeland Opens Up About ‘Lack of Diversity’ in Ballet World

Variety
2016-04-09

Misty Copeland spoke from the heart at Variety’s third annual Power of Women New York event about her journey “from living in a motel to dancing on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House.”

Jussie Smollett Talks About Growing Up in a Biracial Home and Pranking His ‘Empire’ Costars

ABC News
2016-04-08

Angela Williams, Entertainment TV Producer

There is lots of great music, loads of drama and plenty of surprises packed into each episode of Fox’s “Empire.” And much of it is centered around break-out star Jussie Smollett who plays singer/musician Jamal Lyon, son of fictitious music moguls Cookie and Luscious Lyon (played by Taraji P. Henson and Terrance Howard). It’s the role that has thrust Smollett into the spotlight – something he’s still wrapping his head around.

“I was sitting in a restaurant yesterday and I was just in a lunch meeting and then I look and there’s paparazzi out there taking pictures. And I’m like, ‘That’s so weird. It’s not normal,’” Smollett told ABC News. “At first you’re looking around, and you’re like, ‘Is One Direction here? Where’s Michael B. Jordan?’ And then you realize that they’re there for you. And I’m like, ‘There’s gotta be something better to do than follow me around,’” joked Smollett.

Smollett’s character is struggling to gain his father’s approval.

“And because he’s gay, Luscious, played by the great Terrance Howard, is not very supportive,” said Smollett. “He’s not happy. He’s not going on any marches with his son, let’s just say that. He ain’t gone be there.”

A gay, black man living in the world of hip-hop is a role rarely seen on prime-time television. But Smollett said he feels no added pressure on how he portrays the character…

…Smollett’s confidence likely stems from his upbringing. He grew up in a tight-knit family with a diverse background — his mother is African American and his father is Russian-Polish — and he’s one of six siblings.

“We’re a very close family, a functioning family, instead of dysfunctional – unlike the Lyons,” Smollett said. “No one’s ever loved me in spite of who I am. They’ve always loved me because of who I am.”…

Read the entire article here.

A Contested Art: Modernism and Mestizaje in New Mexico

University of Oklahoma Press
2015
304 pages
6.125″ x 9.25″
Hardcover ISBN: 9780806148649

Stephanie Lewthwaite, Lecturer in American History, Faculty of Arts
University of Nottingham

When New Mexico became an alternative cultural frontier for avant-garde Anglo-American writers and artists in the early twentieth century, the region was still largely populated by Spanish-speaking Hispanos. Anglos who came in search of new personal and aesthetic freedoms found inspiration for their modernist ventures in Hispano art forms. Yet, when these arrivistes elevated a particular model of Spanish colonial art through their preservationist endeavors and the marketplace, practicing Hispano artists found themselves working under a new set of patronage relationships and under new aesthetic expectations that tied their art to a static vision of the Spanish colonial past.

In A Contested Art, historian Stephanie Lewthwaite examines the complex Hispano response to these aesthetic dictates and suggests that cultural encounters and appropriation produced not only conflict and loss but also new transformations in Hispano art as the artists experimented with colonial art forms and modernist trends in painting, photography, and sculpture. Drawing on native and non-native sources of inspiration, they generated alternative lines of modernist innovation and mestizo creativity. These lines expressed Hispanos’ cultural and ethnic affiliations with local Native peoples and with Mexico, and presented a vision of New Mexico as a place shaped by the fissures of modernity and the dynamics of cultural conflict and exchange.

A richly illustrated work of cultural history, this first book-length treatment explores the important yet neglected role Hispano artists played in shaping the world of modernism in twentieth-century New Mexico. A Contested Art places Hispano artists at the center of narratives about modernism while bringing Hispano art into dialogue with the cultural experiences of Mexicans, Chicanas/os, and Native Americans. In doing so, it rewrites a chapter in the history of both modernism and Hispano art.

Published in cooperation with The William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University

Tribeca 2016 Preview: Nelsan Ellis, Armani Jackson, Melanie Lynskey in ‘Little Boxes’

Shadow and Act: On Cinema Of The African Diaspora
2016-03-31

Tambay A. Obenson

Nelsan Ellis, Armani Jackson, Melanie Lynskey in “Little Boxes“

The 2016 Tribeca Film Festival kicks off in a couple of weeks, running from April 13-24 in New York City.

Leading up to the event, I’ll highlight a few films or note, given this blog’s specific interests, starting with this one…

Directed by Rob Meyer, written by Annie J Howell, and executive produced by Cary Fukunaga, the drama feature “Little Boxes” stars Nelsan Ellis, Armani Jackson, Melanie Lynskey, Oona Laurence, Janeane Garofalo, and Christine Taylor.

Synopsis: It’s the summer before 6th grade, and Clark (Armani Jackson) is the new-in-town biracial kid in a sea of white. Discovering that to be cool he needs to act “more black,” he fumbles to meet expectations, while his urban intellectual parents Mack and Gina (Nelsan Ellis and Melanie Lynskey) also strive to adjust to small-town living. Equipped for the many inherent challenges of New York, the tight-knit family are ill prepared for the drastically different set of obstacles that their new community presents, and soon find themselves struggling to understand themselves and each other in this new suburban context…

Read the entire article here.

What Does my Body Mean?

Mixed Roots Stories
2016-03-30

Carly Bates

Carly Bates (Photo by: Bethany Brown)

As a student of jazz at my university, I often occupy white male dominated spaces. I am the only woman of color (a black/white biracial woman) in a jazz history class, “Jazz Musicians as Composers,” a course that explores the gray areas of jazz as a concert music. Sometimes, I wonder if I can give myself permission to be a woman of color in this space. In a discussion surrounding the “Freedom Now Suite,” Max Roach’s response to the Greensboro sit ins, I have 75 minutes to say something—anything— so that my professor doesn’t think that I’m “just a shy student.” Rather, I negotiate with myself for 75 minutes what I am allowed to say, how what I say is a reflection of the body I occupy. Pressure mounts as someone questions the rigidity of jazz as a “black” art form. Pressure mounts as students discuss the auto-exoticism of African-American jazz musicians. Pressure mounts as the professor asks if anyone has ever felt that they had to represent a group of people, to act as a monolith. I scream silently: “Yes, every time I enter your class. Every time, for 75 minutes, I measure the amount of voice and the amount of blackness that I allow myself to have.”

What does my body mean here?…

Read the entire article here.

Trevor Noah: ‘It’s easier to be an angry white man than an angry black man’

The Guardian
2016-04-02

Lanre Bakare, Deputy Arts Editor

Trevor Noah photographed at the Daily Show offices.
Photograph: Christopher Lane

Six months ago the South African comic took on the trickiest task in comedy; replacing Jon Stewart as host of the Daily Show. What’s he learned so far? Always keep your cool

Trevor Noah is perched on top of a bank of chairs in the Daily Show conference room. It’s a Friday, which means there’s no live show, and Noah has time to clown around, undergoing half-a-dozen tie changes while being photographed by the Guide. This room is usually the hallowed space where the writers share their ideas and hone jokes for America’s best-known political satire, but right now Noah has his arms outspread and is tottering around as if he’s about to fall over. “That’s good,” says the Guide’s photographer. “Keep doing that airplane thing,” he adds as Noah regains his balance. “Airplane?” asks Noah with faux-incredulity. “That’s what you thought that was? Interesting. This is like a Rorschach test: you see whatever you want.”…

…“For me growing up as a mixed-race person, you’re forced to see both sides,” he explains. “I grew up in a house where my mother was Xhosa, my dad was Swiss, my stepdad was Shangaan, my friends were Zulu. I lived in such a melting pot that I never grew up with a preconceived notion of ‘people’. Because of that it helped my comedy because I could play within the nuance of that world.”…

Read the entire article here.

Blanket Fort Chats: Game Making With Meagan Byrne

FemHype: the safe space for women & nonbinary gamers
2016-04-01

Miss N (Nicole Pacampara)

“Blanket Fort Chats” is a weekly column featuring women and nonbinary game makers talking about the craft of making games. In this week’s post, we feature Meagan Byrne, a Toronto-based Game Design student currently working as a Peer Mentor for her school’s Aboriginal Initiatives office and an active member of her school’s Aboriginal Student Group. She hopes to create games that reflect her Métis/Cree roots and bring new stories to video game players.

Miss N: Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into making games?

Meagan: I actually started out in the live production/theatre field doing lighting design and event planning, but then the recession hit and I couldn’t find full-time work anymore. As my last contract was starting to wrap up, I took a really hard look at the job market. It was clear that if I stuck with this career, I was most likely never going to be able to rise above the poverty line. So I looked at what market was growing, and lo and behold, I saw the gaming industry!…

…Miss N: You’ve previously described Wanisinowin as a game about “being lost or unsure of your place in the world.” What drew you to this theme?

Meagan: I wasn’t told straight up that I was native until I was at least a pre-teen. It wasn’t really a shock, it was more of a “that makes sense” thing. What was hard was the rejection from the native community my aunt brought me to. Almost right away I was dismissed because my skin was too light or I because I didn’t grow up on a reservation. I didn’t feel comfortable going to “native” events or Friendship Centres. Was I going to be thrown out of there, too? My mother was not interested in embracing her identity, neither were my siblings, so I acted like I didn’t care either.

My aunt was my only connection, but it felt too distant that way. I felt that if this is what I am, then why do I feel like a fraud or an outsider? It was really only because of the growing Native community at my school and our Aboriginal Student Success Officer that I was able to find my path and begin to meet with other First Nations, Métis, and Inuit students, and talk to elders.

I know I am not the only Native person who feels this way. I’m sure even outside of the issue of Native identity, many people feel the pain of unsure cultural identity. I wanted to make a game that explored that and maybe work through my own issues of belonging…

Read the entire interview here.

Obama praises wife Michelle’s curves as he sits down with prima ballerina Misty Copeland for interview about body image and growing up black in America

The Daily Mail
London, United Kingdom
2016-03-14

• The president and ballerina interviewed each other for TIME magazine
• Copeland is the first ever African American to be named the principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater
• Obama praised her for being a role model to his young daughters as she breaks barriers with her athletic body type
• Copeland asked Obama for advice on how to stay humble and grounded when one reaches the top of their field

They have a shared history of multiracial families, being raised by single mothers and making it to the top position of their respective fields.

Now President Barack Obama and Prima Ballerina Misty Copeland are sharing a table, discussing their thoughts on women’s body image, affirmative action and growing up black in America.

Copeland, the first African American to be named the principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater, has been breaking barriers in the ballet world with her athletic body type.

And Obama revealed during the TIME interview that it was the likes of Copeland and wife Michelle that were acting as role models for his daughters as they learn the pressures women face today to ‘look a certain way’…

…Copeland said that growing up African American has definitely been a ‘huge obstacle’ but she credited for giving her ‘this fire’ that has made her one of the best in her field.

As both she and the president praised social media for inciting conversation on racism and discrimination in the country, Obama pointed out that more still had to be done…

Read the entire article here.