Mixed Race Studies

BBC World TV Interview Re Rachel Dolezal & Passing

Marcia Dawkins
2015-06-12

Marcia Dawkins, Assistant Professor of Arts and Humanities
The Minerva Schools at KGI, San Francisco, California

Dr. Dee chatted roadside with BBC World News about the firestorm raging around Rachel Dolezal, the white Spokane, Washington NAACP leader who allegedly passes as black.

Multiracial in a Monoracial World: Interaciality Informing Academic Work

University of Michigan Hatcher Graduate Library
Gallery (Room 100)
913 S University Ave
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
2015-10-26

Martha Jones, Prof. of History and Afroamerican & African Studies, co-director of the Michigan Law Program in Race, Law & History. Dr. Jones’ scholarly interests include the history of race, citizenship, slavery, and the rights of women in the United States and the Atlantic world.

Edward West, Thurnau Prof. of Art and Design. Professor West’s photographs and writing examine the lives and experiences of multiracial people around the world. His recent exhibit and publication, So Called, drew from his travels around the world photographing multiracial people.

Mark Kamimura-Jimenez, Director, Graduate Student Success, Rackham Graduate School, Lecturer, Oakland University. Dr. Kamimura-Jimenez’s research examines the college experience for multiracial students.

What Does it Mean to be Multiracial in a Monoracial World? Part of a year-long series of events that explore what it means to be multiracial in a monoracial world. This faculty panel includes: Martha Jones, Prof. of History and Afroamerican & African Studies, co-director of the Michigan Law Program in Race, Law & History. Dr. Jones’ scholarly interests include the history of race, citizenship, slavery, and the rights of women in the United States and the Atlantic world. Edward West, Thurnau Prof. of Art and Design. Professor West’s photographs and writing examine the lives and experiences of multiracial people around the world. His recent exhibit and publication, So Called, drew from his travels around the world photographing multiracial people. Mark Kamimura-Jimenez, Director, Graduate Student Success, Rackham Graduate School, Lecturer, Oakland University. Dr. Kamimura-Jimenez’s research examines the college experience for multiracial students.

Watch the entire video (01:34:22) here.

Thai beauty ad: ‘Just being white, you will win’

Cable News Network (CNN)
2016-01-08

Wilfred Chan

(CNN)—It’s hard to imagine anything more blatant than this.

A new Thai beauty ad claiming white skin is the key to success has unleashed a storm of criticism in Thailand, especially online, where people complain the ad perpetuates damaging, racist ideas.

“Just being white, you will win,” says Cris Horwang, a smiling pale-skinned actress, in the 50-second spot by Seoul Secret, a Thai beauty company.

Without the advertised pill, “the whiteness I have invested in, will just vanish,” she warns.

On screen, the actress’ expression turns despondent as her skin is digitally altered to turn black.

Horwang promises that the product, called Snowz, “will help you not to return to being dark.”

“Eternally white, I am confident,” she adds.

On Friday evening, Seoul Secret pulled the video from its online platforms and issued a statement.

“(We) would like to apologize for the mistake and claim full responsibility for this incident. Our company did not have any intention to convey discriminatory or racist messages,” it said.

“What we intended to convey was that self-improvement in terms of personality, appearance, skills, and professionality (sic) is crucial.”…

Read the entire article and view the ad here.

[Note from Steven F. Riley: See the article, “Skin Bleaching and Global White Supremacy: By Way of Introduction.”]

The Race Relations Act at 50: Davina’s story

BBC Radio 5
In Short
2015-12-07

It is 50 years since Britain’s first Race Relations Act was passed, banning racial discrimination in public places.

Davina Looker, an English teacher and blogger from London has spoken to BBC Radio 5 live about her “desperate” search to find an identity, growing up as a child of mixed heritage. Her father Austin moved to the UK from Nigeria in 1988.

“There were struggles growing up mixed race and struggling to find an identity”, she said, adding:

“I remember going on holiday […] and being told certain children didn’t want to play with me because I was black or brown […] or going to church and no one learning my name, referring to me as ‘lighty’ rather than actually getting to know me as a person”.

Davina says she feels that things are improving now there are more mixed race people in the UK, It’s easier to understand when you’ve got people around you going through the exact same thing”.

This clip is originally from Up All Night on Monday 7 December 2015.

Watch the video here.

One Drop of Love 2015

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni
2015-12-30

Love & Gratitude to all who contributed to making 2015 an amazing year for One Drop of Love!

One Drop of Love is a multimedia one-woman show exploring the intersections of race, class, gender, justice and LOVE.

For more information, click here.

Plessy v. Ferguson Re-Argument

C-SPAN: Created by Cable
Program ID: 71350-1
1996-04-20

Hosted by Harvard University

Distinguished jurists heard a re-argument of Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 Supreme Court case in which the Court found that Louisiana did not discriminate against Homer A. Plessy when it refused to let him sit in the white only section of a passenger train. In this decision, the Court established the legal doctrine of “separate, but equal,” which governed discrimination cases until the 1954 decision of Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The participants had access only to the facts and case law available in 1896 for their arguments. Following the arguments, the “Court” deliberated in public and unanimously reversed its original 6-1 decision.

Watch the video (02:31:49) here.

This poem perfectly captures feelings from a campus protest

Blavity
2015-12-26

Blavity Team

What’s it like to be conscious of being love[d] and being hated at the same time? This poet [Ariana Brown] eloquently explains her experience at a campus protest.

Panel Discussion: Social Inequalities in Health

National Institutes of Health (U.S.). Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
Bethesda, Maryland
2015-05-08, 14:00 EDT (Local Time)

The NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research will host the Panel Discussion: Social Inequalities in Health, on May 8, 2015, at the NIH Campus, as part of the 2014-2015 BSSR Lecture Series to promote open and engaged discussion about cutting edge research in the behavioral and social sciences field.

Panelists:

• Ann Morning, PhD, New York University
• Dorothy Roberts, JD, University of Pennsylvania
• Jo Phelan, PhD, Columbia University

Watch or download the video (01:56:15) here.

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, “Why Can’t We Just Get Along?: Race Matters in the Colorblind Racial Movement”

Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America (CSREA)
Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice
Brown University
2015-02-27 (Published on 2015-07-02)

Presents…

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Professor of Sociology
Duke University

“Race Today: A Symposium on Race in America” brought a group of the nation’s most respected intellectuals on race, racial theory and racial inequality together to consider the troubling state of black life in America today. What are the broader structural factors that shape race today? How do these factors work on the ground and institutionally and what are the consequences? What are the ideas about race, and racial identities that enable the normalcy of stark racial differences today? In particular, what role do key ideas such as “colorblindness” and “post race” play in shaping perception and outcomes? What can be done to challenge ideological and structural impediments to a racially egalitarian society?

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva is a Professor of Sociology at Duke University. Bonilla-Silva speaks widely on race and ethnic matters nation wide. He has published four books: White Supremacy and Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era (co-winner of the 2002 Oliver Cox Award given by the American Sociological Association), Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States (2004 Choice Award; this book is now in a second [fourth] expanded and revised edition that was published in 2006), White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism (with Ashley Doane), and (with Tukufu Zuberi) White Logic, White Methods: Racism and Social Science.

Passing in White America

Chicago Humanities Festival
2015-12-18

Between the 18th and 20th centuries, countless African Americans passed as white, leaving behind families, friends, and community. It was, as Stanford historian Allyson Hobbs writes, a chosen exile, a separation from one racial identity and a leap into another. Her work explores the way this racial indeterminacy offered an escape from slavery in the antebellum South and helped defy Jim Crow. But in looking back at both American history and the story of her own family, Hobbs also uncovers the terrible grief, loneliness, and isolation of passing, and the ways it continues to influence our thinking about racial identity and politics.

This program is presented as part of the annual Karla Scherer Endowed Lecture Series for the University of Chicago and is presented in partnership with the Stanford Humanities Center.

This program was recorded on October 25, 2015 as part of the 26th annual Chicago Humanities Festival.