Mixed Race Studies

Reclaiming Jewish Identity: An Aboriginal People of the Middle East

The Huffington Post
2015-06-07

Binyamin Arazi

Starting this September, after decades of lobbying efforts by Arab-American organizations, the United States Census Bureau will begin testing a new category for Americans of Middle Eastern and North African origin. In conjunction with this new listing, no less than 19 subcategories will be made available, including ‘Israel.’ So where does this leave Jewish Americans? Should diaspora Jews follow the example of their Israeli co-ethnics and mark “Middle Eastern/North African,” or should they take the easy way out and mark “Other” or even “White,” as most Middle Eastern and North African Americans have done up to this point? Should there be a separate “Jewish” category?

These questions are likely to confuse many readers, particularly those who are more inclined to perceive “Jewishness” as a religious identity rather than an ethnic one. Nevertheless, contrary to the widespread belief that we merely constitute a religious faith, the Jewish people are an ethnic group/tribe of Southwest Asian origin, and one of the oldest extant native peoples of the region…

Read the entire article here.

Brown Theology, Critical Race Theory, and the Laws of Burgos

Jesus for Revolutionaries
2015-06-29

Robert Chao Romero, Associate Professor of Chicana/o Studies and Asian American Studies
University of California, Los Angeles

The fervent cries of Montesino soon reached the ears of King Ferdinand.   On March 20, 1512, the king ordered Governor Diego Columbus to silence Montesinos under penalty of repatriation to Spain (Hanke, 18).   On March 23, 1512, the Dominican Superior in Spain followed suit and likewise rebuked Montesinos and the rebellious monks for their irksome teaching.  Undeterred, Montesinos held his ground.  To break the impasse, both the colonists and Dominicans sent representatives to Spain to argue their positions before the royal court.  The colonists appointed a Franciscan monk, Alonso del Espinal; the Dominicans selected Montesinos.  (Hanke, 22, 23).  Bewildered by the long list of abuses perpetrated against the natives, King Ferdinand convened a group of theologians and royal officials to examine the situation and to create laws which addressed the purported injustices.

In support of the colonist’s position, Friar Bernardo de Mesa asserted that the Indians should be subject to servitude because of their laziness.  By forcing them to labor for Spaniards, de Mesa reasoned, it would “curb their inclinations and compel them to industry” (Hanke, 23).   Drawing from Aristotle, a second court preacher, Licentiate Gregorio argued that forced labor was justified because the Indians were “natural slaves.”

According to Aristotle in Book 1 of the Politics, some human beings are born “natural slaves” (Smith, 110; 1254a21-24).  Natural slaves lack reason and have an aptitude for manual labor (Smith, 110; Politics, 1260a12; 3.1280a33-34).  Moreover, Aristotle asserts, a slave may be properly regarded as part of his master’s own body.  (Smith, 110; Politics, 1254b20-23).   In drawing from Aristotle’s natural slavery argument, Gregorio initiated a line of twisted theological reasoning which would later be used to justify conquest and colonization of all of the Americas, as well the enslavement of millions of African slaves.   Because the diverse indigenous populations of North and South America were “natural slaves” some would argue, it was morally acceptable to conquer their lands and force them to labor for enlightened Europeans.  As “natural slaves,” moreover, West Africans were less than human and therefore could be captured, shipped, and sold to Spanish, Portuguese, and English settlers.

After meeting more than 20 times, the royal junta came to several seemingly contradictory conclusions:  1. The Indians were free political subjects; 2. They were entitled to humane treatment;  3.  Nonetheless, they could be subject to compulsory labor for Spaniards; and, 4. The Indians should be forced to live in close proximity to the Europeans in order to allow for more effective religious inculcation and instruction.  (Hanke, 23).   These principles became codified in the first racially discriminatory laws in the history of the Americas called the Laws of Burgos (Hanke, 24)…

Read the entire article here.

The Baptism of Early Virginia: How Christianity Created Race

Johns Hopkins Univesity Press
August 2012
240 pages
1 halftone, 1 line drawing
Hardback ISBN: 9781421407005

Rebecca Anne Goetz, Associate Professor of History
New York University

In The Baptism of Early Virginia, Rebecca Anne Goetz examines the construction of race through the religious beliefs and practices of English Virginians. She finds the seventeenth century a critical time in the development and articulation of racial ideologies—ultimately in the idea of “hereditary heathenism,” the notion that Africans and Indians were incapable of genuine Christian conversion. In Virginia in particular, English settlers initially believed that native people would quickly become Christian and would form a vibrant partnership with English people. After vicious Anglo-Indian violence dashed those hopes, English Virginians used Christian rituals like marriage and baptism to exclude first Indians and then Africans from the privileges enjoyed by English Christians—including freedom.

Resistance to hereditary heathenism was not uncommon, however. Enslaved people and many Anglican ministers fought against planters’ racial ideologies, setting the stage for Christian abolitionism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Using court records, letters, and pamphlets, Goetz suggests new ways of approaching and understanding the deeply entwined relationship between Christianity and race in early America.

4th Annual “What Are You?” with Lacey Schwartz’s “Little White Lie”

Brooklyn Historical Society
128 Pierrepont Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201
Monday, 2015-06-08, 18:30-21:00 EDT (Local Time)

A BHS “Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations” program.

Top: Lacey Schwartz, photo by Michael Hill; Bottom: Lise Funderburg, photo by Tigist Tsegie

On the week of Loving Day 2015, filmmaker Lacey Schwartz comes to BHS to presents her provocative documentary about being a biracial woman who grew up believing she was white, Little White Lie, as part of our 4th Annual What Are You? program looking at mixed heritage and identity.

Lise Funderburg, the author of the ground-breaking book on multiracial identity, Black, White, Other leads Schwartz in a post-screening talkback.

For more information and to reserve a free ticket, click here.

Dr. Bonnie Duran on Race, Racism, & the Dharma

The Whole U
The University of Washington
2015-04-30

Bonnie Duran, Associate Professor of Social Work

The Dharma is the most important source of insight and inspiration to me as I heal from racism and discrimination and as I work towards social justice. The Dharma has taught me important truths about being a “minority” and the powerlessness, discrimination, and prejudice that often come with that status.

Growing up, I strongly identified by and with my racial identities and unconsciously believed the negative stereotypes. As a Native American (Opelousas/Coushatta) mixed race child growing up in a culturally diverse neighborhood in San Francisco, my white friends were often discouraged from playing or spending time with me. Although I scored well on standardized tests, the nuns who were my teachers tracked me into secretarial training and out of college preparatory courses. Girls from the Catholic school I attended would go to the predominantly white Catholic boys schools for monthly dances. I was rarely asked to dance. I unconsciously internalized these messges that I was worth less than others and was fearful, shamed, and obsequious towards authority. Although hurtful and limiting, experiences like these seem minor next to those of my parents, who passed down intergenerational fear, shame, and rage from much more serious, life threatening experiences

When I entered college and began to understand that I was the victim of racism, I was at first enraged by blatant prejudice and was hopeless about my life chances. I engaged in political work, and participated in the burgeoning Native cultural revitalization movement that was sweeping urban areas all over the U.S. and in other communities of color. As an undergraduate in the 1970s, I was very involved with the American Indian student rights, people of color movement at San Francisco State University. After years of political, cultural, and social work, I came to be disenchanted, particularly with the anger, separation, and other afflictive emotions that unmindful political community work and youthful party life can cultivate. As a mixed race person, I often felt that I had no solid cultural ground anywhere…

Read the entire article here.

Sorry Music Journalists, Drake is Black.

Canadaland
2015-04-30

Kyrell Grant

Writers need to stop policing his blackness

It feels ridiculous to have to say this: Drake is black.

Drake, born Aubrey Graham in a city where almost one in ten people are black, is black. Toronto’s greatest civic triumphalist since Jane Jacobs is black.

He is a black man as much as any other black man. And yet Drake’s own identity – his nationality, his mixed race background that includes Jewish heritage and upbringing, the neighbourhood he once lived in, the schools he went to – is often taken to mean that his black experience is somehow inauthentic. While certainly not the first artist to have this kind of analysis imposed on him, Drake’s profile means that his art in particular has been prominently used to deny his black experience when it doesn’t conform to someone else’s narrow vision of race…

Read the entire article here.

Brian Bantum on Redeeming Mulatto

Homebrewed Christianity
2014-08-17

Bo Sanders

Brian Bantum teaches theology at Seattle Pacific University out in the mighty Northwest. This spring when he and Callid were both at the Christian Leadership Forum of FTE they sat down to talk about Brian’s book Redeeming Mulatto: A Theology of Race and Christian Hybridity. Because they are in a hotel lobby there a bit of background noise, but it is such a terrific interview that you’ll want to listen all the way through anyway If you want to followup on this conversation another great resource is this video of Brian giving a talk called “The Church Cannot be About Multiculturalism” at Quest Church‘s annual day conference on Faith & Race. Bantum is on twitter as well…

Listen to the interview here.

The Life of William Apess, Pequot

University of North Carolina Press
March 2015
216 pages
1 halftone, notes, bibl., index
6.125 x 9.25
Cloth ISBN: 978-1-4696-1998-9

Philip F. Gura, William S. Newman Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

The Pequot Indian intellectual, author, and itinerant preacher William Apess (1798–1839) was one the most important voices of the nineteenth century. Here, Philip F. Gura offers the first book-length chronicle of Apess’s fascinating and consequential life. After an impoverished childhood marked by abuse, Apess soldiered with American troops during the War of 1812, converted to Methodism, and rose to fame as a lecturer who lifted a powerful voice of protest against the plight of Native Americans in New England and beyond. His 1829 autobiography, A Son of the Forest, stands as the first published by a Native American writer. Placing Apess’s activism on behalf of Native American people in the context of the era’s rising tide of abolitionism, Gura argues that this founding figure of Native intellectual history deserves greater recognition in the pantheon of antebellum reformers. Following Apess from his early life through the development of his political radicalism to his tragic early death and enduring legacy, this much-needed biography showcases the accomplishments of an extraordinary Native American.

Being Black at Seattle Pacific University: 3 Things I Learned

Christena Cleveland: social psychology + faith + reconciliation
2013-08-30

Nikkita Oliver

NOTE: This is the fourth part in our 8-part Black to School series which highlights African-American voices and experiences at Christian colleges. Please read Part 1 for context.

Today’s post comes from Nikkita Oliver who graduated from Seattle Pacific University in 2008. A former chaplain and service provider at the King County Youth Detention Center, she’s currently working on a J.D. at the University of Washington Law School — on a full scholarship, no less. (Way to go, Nikkita!)

I’m so encouraged that Nikkita’s exploration into the depths of her experience at SPU has resulted in grace, hope and a greater commitment to reconciliation.

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As a child I was acutely aware of the massive racial divide in the church. My father is Black American and my mother is White American. I would go to an all black Baptist church with my father one Sunday and to an all white Free Methodist church with my mother the next. There were so many differences between the two churches, but two things remained the same: we read the same scriptures and worshiped the same Lord and Savior.

When I arrived at Seattle Pacific University (SPU) in the fall of 2004, I did not realize that I would be the one black kid in all of my classes. I did not realize that racism existed among Jesus believers, despite being aware of the racial divide in the Church. I did not realize that I was angry with white people, and in particular, angry with white Christians. I also did not know that 5 years after graduating that I would be so thankful for every minute I spent at SPU…

Read the entire article here.

The Family Secret in the Mirror

The Brian Lehrer Show
WNYC 93.9 FM
New York, New York
Monday, 2015-03-23

Brian Lehrer, Host

Lacey Schwartz wins the documentary section prize for her documentary work-in-progress, ‘Outside The Box’ at the TAA Awards during the 5th Annual Tribeca Film Festival. (Mat Szwajkos/Getty)

Raised as a white Jewish kid in Woodstock, New York, filmmaker Lacey Schwartz tells the story of her discovery that she is in fact bi-racial and doesn’t just take after her father’s Sicilian ancestor. In her documentary “Little White Lie,” she discusses the effect of the lies and the truth about her family and identity.

Download the episode here.