Mixed Race Studies

Brutal Nazi Torture of Black German Boy Gert Schramm in Nazi Germany – Buchenwald – World War 2

World History
2023-03-21

Despite the Nuremberg Laws, some Black people and so called German “Aryans” still became romantically involved with one another. These relationships were dangerous for both partners, especially if they chose to try to legally marry. In Nazi Germany, everyone was required to apply for permission to marry. When interracial couples applied, their applications were consistently denied for racial reasons. These applications brought their interracial relationships to the attention of government authorities. This often had dire consequences for the couple. In multiple cases, marriage applications resulted in harassment, sterilization and the breaking up of partnerships.

Legal couples whose marriages pre-dated the Nuremberg Laws were harassed by the Nazi regime. The regime pressured white German women to divorce their Black husbands. Interracial couples and their children were often humiliated and even assaulted when they appeared together in public.

Like their parents, many Black children in Germany experienced the Nazi era as a time of increased loneliness, isolation, and exclusion. Some Black children felt German and wanted to be a part of the excitement. But Nazi racial ideology had no place for Black-German children. For Black children in Nazi Germany, schools became sites of humiliation. Black children were often degraded in racial science classes and ridiculed by teachers who supported the Nazis…

Just as the Nazification of the education system greatly restricted the rights of Jewish children to attend public schools, it also impacted Black children over the course of the 1930s. Some Black students were expelled and unable to complete their education. Few private schools would accept Black students and finding apprenticeships, which in Germany was crucial to find employment, became increasingly difficult.

Such was a case of Gert Schramm…

Watch the video here.

MIXED VOICES / VOCES MIXTAS

INMIX-UAB
2022-12-19

Synopsis: This topical short documentary features interviews with multiethnic and multiracial youth living in Catalonia, Spain, who talk about their mixed heritage and its meaning for them, their identity and sense of belonging, and their experiences of discrimination and agency. Through these narratives, MIXED VOICES reveals that the positive, empowering experiences of mixedness—a growing reality in Spain as well as across the globe—can coexist with negative stereotypes and prejudices and the continued stigmatization and discrimination of racialized groups, who are more constrained in their identity options. In this way, the documentary highlights the socially transformative aspects of mixedness while alerting us to persistent social divisions that hinder social inclusion and cohesion.

MIXED VOICES was produced as part of the MIXED-YOUTH Research Project (“Social Relations and Identity Processes of Children of Mixed Unions: Mixedness—Between Inclusion and Social Constraints,” CSO2015-63962-R), for which a total of 152 Spanish-born individuals from very diverse ancestries were interviewed. More information about the results of this project can be found in the following publications:

• Rodríguez-García, Dan. (2022) “The Persistence of Racial Constructs in Spain: Bringing Race and Colorblindness into the Debate on Interculturalism.” Social Sciences 11: 13. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci11010013.
• Rodríguez-García, Dan, Miguel Solana, Anna Ortiz, and Beatriz Ballestín. (2021) “Blurring of Colour Lines? Ethnoracially Mixed Youth in Spain Navigating Identity.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 47(4): 838–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2019.1654157.
• Rodríguez-García, Dan, and Cristina Rodríguez-Reche. (2022) “Daughters of Maghrebian Muslim and Native Non-Muslim Couples in Spain: Identity Choices and Constraints.” Social Compass 69(3): 423–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/00377686221091045.
• Rodríguez-García, Dan, Miguel Solana-Solana, Anna Ortiz-Guitart, and Joanna L. Freedman. (2018) “Linguistic Cultural Capital among Descendants of Mixed Couples in Catalonia, Spain.” Journal of Intercultural Studies 39(4): 429–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2018.1487388.
• Rodríguez-García, Dan. (2016) “Advances in the Study of Mixedness: Evaluating the Relationship Between Mixed Unions and Social Integration.” Revista UAB Divulga: Barcelona Investigación e Innovación, 11/04/2016. https://www.uab.cat/web/news-detail-1345680342044.html?noticiaid=1345700449240.

The material for this documentary was recorded in 2020 in Catalonia, Spain, in the midst of a full lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Each participant self-recorded their video, which may have affected the sound and image quality in some cases. All participants have given their consent to use their recordings for the purposes of this documentary.

ORIGINAL IDEA, DIRECTION, AND PRODUCTION DESIGN:
Dan Rodríguez-García

EDITOR:
Victor Navarro-Izquierdo

PARTICIPANTS:
Carina Camacho-Semlani, Esteban Delgado-Arias, Jordi Strutt-Jaguin, Lukas Caggese-Ostergaard, Mireia Pereira-Molina, Nadya Jaziri-Arjona, Núria Ishii-Balagueró, Sonia Meynand-Giménez, Sora Ndiaye-Grau, Teresa Habimana-Jordana, Theo Bikoko-Pineda, Zeynabú Said-Xixons

PRODUCTION TEAM:
INMIX-UAB Research Group on Immigration, Mixedness, and Social Cohesion: Dan Rodríguez-García, Anna Ortiz-Guitart, Cristina Rodríguez-Reche, Teresa Habimana-Jordana, Miguel Solana-Solana, Beatriz Ballestín-González, Víctor Navarro-Izquierdo, Joanna Freedman

SUBTITLES:
Joanna Freedman & Dan Rodríguez-García

Oachkatzlschwoaf: The word that’s ‘impossible’ to say

BBC Reel
2022-11-24

Words are loaded with meaning. Certain ones conjure joyful memories and others remind us of less happy times.

For Nenda Neururer, the word ‘oachkatzlschwoaf‘ invokes a range of emotions. The German word is very hard to pronounce and is synonymous with the Austrian state of Tyrol where locals tease outsiders by asking them to pronounce it.

Despite growing up in Tyrol, Nenda Neururer often felt like an outsider when confronted with this word. But when she moved to London she grew nostalgic for it and it became her little secret.

Found in Translation is a series made as part of the In The Mix project, in partnership with BBC Studios TalentWorks, Black Creators Matter and the Barbican.

Video by Nenda Neururer
Executive Producer: Paul I. Harris

By The Cut of Their Cloth

The Mixed Museum
London, United Kingdom
2022-03-21

BTCOTC’s creative director, Warren Reilly, and the Director of The Mixed Museum, Dr Chamion Caballero, discuss the inspiration behind their exploration into Brent’s mixed race and multicultural history as well as the project’s activities.

BTCOTC is part of the Being Brent Heritage 2021 Well Being fund. To learn more about the project, visit: https://mixedmuseum.org.uk/btcotcproject.

Film directed and edited by Justine Nassef Magdy.

The archival photographs featured in the video are from the Petersen Collection at Glamorgan Archives, and Butetown History and Arts Centre (material now hosted at The Heritage & Cultural Exchange Archive).

For more information, click here.

Understanding Juneteenth’s History

NBC 4
New York, New York
2022-06-19

Here to help us understand Juneteenth’s history is Zebulon Miletsky, an Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History at Stony Brook University.

Tao Leigh Goffe Is On A Mission To Uncover ‘Afro-Asian Intimacies’

Sweet July
2022-05-09

Nylah Burton

“I am the sedimented sum of four islands. The Caribbean, Hong Kong, the British Isles, New York City; all of them seas and stretches of water containing many islands.”

“My parents named me Tao,” Dr. Tao Leigh Goffe narrates as she approaches an intricately carved, dark wood chest in season two, episode seven of the Hulu series Your Attention Please: Initiative 29.

Directed by Carmen LoBue, the short film is focused on Goffe—who was born in London and lives in New York City—and her Afro-Asian heritage. Opening the chest, Goffe’s hand grazes family photos and mementos: Black Caribbean men in smart suits, her Jamaican Chinese mother, and red envelopes gilded with gold, containing one word: Legacy…

Read the entire article here.

Improving skin tone representation across Google

Google
2022-05-11

Tulsee Doshi, Head of Product, Responsible AI

Seeing yourself reflected in the world around you — in real life, media or online — is so important. And we know that challenges with image-based technologies and representation on the web have historically left people of color feeling overlooked and misrepresented. Last year, we announced Real Tone for Pixel, which is just one example of our efforts to improve representation of diverse skin tones across Google products.

Today, we’re introducing a next step in our commitment to image equity and improving representation across our products. In partnership with Harvard professor and sociologist Dr. Ellis Monk, we’re releasing a new skin tone scale designed to be more inclusive of the spectrum of skin tones we see in our society. Dr. Monk has been studying how skin tone and colorism affect people’s lives for more than 10 years.

The culmination of Dr. Monk’s research is the Monk Skin Tone (MST) Scale, a 10-shade scale that will be incorporated into various Google products over the coming months. We’re openly releasing the scale so anyone can use it for research and product development. Our goal is for the scale to support inclusive products and research across the industry — we see this as a chance to share, learn and evolve our work with the help of others…

Read the entire article here.

Robin Thede Teases ‘Epic’ Return of ‘A Black Lady Sketch Show’ on Variety’s ‘Through Our Lens’

Variety
2022-04-02

Robin Thede, writer, comedian and creator of ‘A Black Lady Sketch Show’, joins Variety’s Angelique Jackson on ‘Through Our Lens’ to discuss how her perspective as a Black woman has shaped her comedy career and outlook as a creator and showrunner.

Watch the interview here. Read the article here.

MIXED MESSAGES episode five – Steve

Mixed Messages
2022-03-20

Sarah Doneghy, Host

Steve [Majors] discusses his book, “High Yella.” He tells what it was like growing up in a Black family and being told he was Black, to being white assumed as an adult while raising two Black daughters. In his search for identity, Steve discovers being Black is not only skin deep.

Edward Telles: Afrodescendents and the Project on Race and Ethnicity in Latin America

BYU Kennedy Center
2021-03-04

Edward Telles, Distinguished Professor of Sociology
University of California, Irvine

For Latin America’s 170 million people of indigenous and African heritage, questions of race, ethnicity, and perceptions of skin color impact issues of equality. Dr. Telles will address his work with PERLA (Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America), which provides an empirical examination of numerous dimensions of race and ethnicity across Latin America.

Dr. Edward Telles is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine, and a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has reoriented the field of Sociology beyond the black-white paradigm prominent in the United States through his research and writings on color, race, and ethnicity globally, particularly in Latin America and for Latinos in the United States. He is the author or co-author of numerous articles and books, including Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America.

Watch the presentation (00:57:03) here.