Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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Category: Barack Obama

  • Destiny’s Child: Obama and Election ’08

    Destiny’s Child: Obama and Election ’08 boundary 2: an international journal of literature and culture Volume 39, Number 2 (Summer 2012) pages 3-32 DOI: 10.1215/01903659-1597871 Hortense Spillers, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English Vanderbilt University “Destiny’s Child: Obama and Election ’08” interrogates the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States as…

  • The Miracle and the Defects [Chapter]

    The Miracle and the Defects [Chapter] Chapter in: The Constantinos Kararnanlis Institute for Democracy Yearbook 2009 DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-00621-0 pages 73-77 DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-00621-0_11 Edited by: Constantine Arvanitopoulos, Professor of European and International Studies Panteion University, Athens, Greece Konstantina E. Botsiou, Associate Professor of Political Science University of Peloponnisos, Korinthos, Greece Chapter Author: George Th. Mavrogordatos, Professor…

  • Mixed Blessing

    Mixed Blessing The New York Times 2008-06-18 Francis Wilkinson, Executive Editor The Week Being from an interracial marriage has shaped Obama’s political stance. Far from the storied hollows of Appalachia, and well before the Rev. Jeremiah Wright lit up the cable news channels or the “elitist” label was fixed to Barack Obama’s lapel right where…

  • American Creoles: The Francophone Caribbean and the American South

    American Creoles: The Francophone Caribbean and the American South Liverpool University Press May 2012 256 pages 234 x 156 mm Hardback ISBN: 9781846317538 Edited by: Celia Britton, Professor of French and Francophone Studies University College London Martin Munro, Professor of French and Francophone Studies Florida State University The Francophone Caribbean and the American South are…

  • Commentary: Morgan Freeman’s Misguided “Mixed-Race President” Quote

    Commentary: Morgan Freeman’s Misguided “Mixed-Race President” Quote Black Entertainment Television 2012-07-09 Cord Jefferson The legendary Black actor made a silly mistake when he said Obama isn’t a truly Black president, because fewer and fewer truly Black Americans exist. Morgan Freeman is one of the most sought after actors in Hollywood, and for good reason: He’s…

  • Black or biracial? Census forces a choice for some

    There were 784,764 U.S. residents who described their race as white and black in the last census. But that number didn’t include Laura Martin, whose father is black and mother is white. “I’ve always just checked black on my form,” said Martin, a 29-year-old university employee in Las Vegas. She grew up surrounded by black…

  • Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S.

    In “Articulate While Black,” two renowned scholars of Black Language address language and racial politics in the U.S. through an insightful examination of President Barack Obama’s language use—and America’s response to it

  • I argue that this phenomenon of the conflation of Obama and Hitler channels racial anxieties, and even outright panic…

    I argue that this phenomenon of the conflation of Obama and Hitler channels racial anxieties, and even outright panic, about a ‘non-white’ president taking office. I situate this panic within ‘whiteness,’ and argue that it encompasses not just the fear of a ‘black’ president, but also the fear of unsettling the purportedly settled categories of…

  • Fear of a ‘Black’ President: Obama, Racial Panic and the Presidential Sign

    Of all the imaginable racialized backlash, real or representational, to Barack Obama’s candidacy for and inauguration as President of the United States, probably no one would have predicted the relatively widespread depiction of him as Adolf Hitler. Even a cursory knowledge of Hitler’s ‘policies’ as leader of the Third Reich and his eugenicist crimes against…

  • Morgan Freeman: No Black President For U.S. Yet

    Morgan Freeman: No Black President For U.S. Yet Tell Me More National Public Radio 2012-07-06 Michel Martin, Host Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman joined Tell Me More host Michel Martin to discuss his new movie, The Magic of Belle Isle. But the prolific actor, famous for his roles in films such as The Shawshank Redemption, Million…