Mixed Race Studies

New Film Shows Misty Copeland’s Journey as a Black Ballerina

NBC News
2015-09-30

Maya Chung

The 2015 Urbanworld Festival closed out on Saturday night with the highly anticipated documentary “A Ballerina’s Tale,” which details Misty Copeland’s journey to become a principal ballerina.

The film festival, founded in 1997, is a five-day event that showcases narrative features, documentaries, short films, and spotlight screenings with the goal of redefining and advancing the impact of the multicultural community in the film world.

“A Ballerina’s Tale” is one film that is making that impact. The documentary gives an in-depth picture of Copeland’s struggles with being black in a predominantly white Ballet world and it chronicles her experience recovering from a leg fracture – one that could’ve stopped her dream of becoming a principal dancer…

…Copeland, 33, beat the odds and became the American Ballet Theatre’s first black female principal dancer in the company’s 75-year history this past June. But, it wasn’t easy and the film makes that clear. She explained that she struggled being a black dancer when she first began in the professional ballet world.

“I’ve never strayed away from being black. I’m biracial but something that my mom constantly said to me growing up in southern California was ‘Yes, you are Italian, you are German, and you are black, but you are going to be viewed by the world as a black woman’,” Copeland said. “I never felt different growing up but when I came into the ballet world as a professional I immediately felt different.”…

Read the entire interview here.

What I am learning from my white grandchildren — truths about race

TEDxAntioch
2014-11-04

Anthony Peterson

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Are we in a post-racial society? Do we want to be? Anthony Peterson, an African American, draws from current research and from conversations with his Anglo American grandchildren to address truths about race in 21st century America.

Anthony Peterson is an African American Army brat who calls Hawaii home. He has lived, studied, written about, and taught about cultural and racial realities. He has developed and facilitated diversity training for corporate and church leaders. His degrees in psychology and religious education add to his perspective. Anthony continues work as an educator, writer and editor in Nashville, Tennessee, where he lives with his wife, Laura. They count six children and nine grandchildren.

Misty Copeland on Why She Doesn’t Identify as Biracial: ‘I Am Viewed as a Black Woman’

Black Entertainment Television (BET)
2015-10-15

Evelyn Diaz

Misty Copeland

The history-making ballerina on changing the game.

Misty Copeland and director Nelson George recently talked about their new documentary, A Ballerina’s Tale, which chronicles Copeland’s awe-inspiring rise to becoming the first Black principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater. The film is not only a portrait of one of the most exciting artists of our generation, but a look at how difficult it still is for people of color to gain entry into some parts of American life.

Asked why it was important for him to tell Copeland’s story, George’s answer is simple: “Black artists aren’t documented very well,” he says.

Copeland, meanwhile, got real about the backlash she’s experienced from her own people because of her skin color. “I’ve gotten some flack from the African-American community…[people] say ‘you’re not really Black,’ or ‘you don’t really have dark skin,'” she says. “I’m fully aware that it’s harder to succeed in ballet as a darker-skinned woman, but it has to start somewhere.” She adds that the racial discrimination in ballet — and the rest of the world — doesn’t differentiate between dark-skinned and light-skinned. “I know that I’m viewed as a Black woman in society,” she says.

Watch our full interview with Copeland and George below, and see A Ballerina’s Tale in select theaters and on VOD now.

Watch the video here.

True Colors: Charlie Villanueva and Others Explain the Afro-Latino Experience

ESPN
2015-09-10

Charlie Villanueva knows that life in the United States for many still means being judged by one’s skin color, but he’s not shy about challenging such preconceived ideas, boldly asking if the public can know who he really is by just a surface assessment.

His experience defies easy categorization partly because as an Afro-Latino, Villanueva’s culture is a mix of influences that have shaped him as an individual.

ESPN’s One Nacion takes a closer look at some of the stories that are an integral part of the tapestry of Latino-America.

Watch the video here.

Light in the Shadows: Staying at the Table When the Conversation about Race Gets Hard

World Trust Films
2010
DVD, 00:45:00
United States

Shakti Butler, Director and Producer

Light in the Shadows: Staying at the Table When the Conversation about Race Gets Hard records a frank dialogue among two white women and several women of color. The film uses their conflict as a learning tool to illumine how conversations on race often break down along lines of race and power.

When the cross-racial conversation gets hard during diversity initiatives & equity efforts, emotions can arise and people may walk away discouraged. This film & its conversation guide are designed to support inquiry:

• How can we recognize the patterns and obstacles that cause people, who are committed to working together, to leave the table?
• How can white activists stay at the table when confronted with the pain caused by privilege?
• How can people of color be empowered in cross-cultural relationships?

This film is challenging. As such, it is designed for those who are ready to take another step in learning, or wish to develop facilitation skills that invite deeper listening and truth-telling. ”The conversation in this film takes place around a metaphorical round table at which everyone has an equal seat. This challenges the power dynamics of white culture,” says the filmmaker, Shakti Butler.

Light in the Shadows is a frank conversation about race among ten women who participated in the ground-breaking film The Way Home. These American women of Indigenous, African, Arab/Middle Eastern, European, Jewish, Asian, Latina and Mixed Race descent, use authentic dialogue to crack open a critical door of consciousness.

What lies behind it is a perspective on race that is often unseen/ unnoticed within the dominant culture. With clear language, open hearts and a willingness to engage – even when it gets hard – these women travel over roads that demonstrate why valuable discourse on race is so laden with emotion, distrust and misunderstanding. Light in the Shadows is a springboard for critical self-inquiry and inter-ethnic dialogue.

Read the conversation guide here.

To Be Black And Boricua

La Respuesta
2015-09-17

At this year’s Afro-Latino Festival of New York, La Respuesta teamed up with Project Bronx, the community-focused web series, for an exciting video collaboration. We spoke with festival attendees, artists, and vendors about a theme central to the festival’s focus.

For the past 3 years, the Afro-Latino Festival “celebrates the contributions that people of African descent from Latin America and the Caribbean have made to our city and the global culture as a whole.” The festival this year featured more than a dozen artists and groups, among them the New York-based Bombazo Dance Company, and the Puerto Rico-based Cultura Profética.

As official media partners of the Afro-Latino Festival, we at La Respuesta joined with Project Bronx to document views on Afro Boricua identity. As a Boricua publication, one of our key commitments is to highlight and honor the depth and legacy of our connection to African culture. We asked Puerto Ricans attending the event how our African/Black roots are celebrated. We also asked why many downplay or even deny their own African/Black ancestry. Here’s what they had to say…

NEW TO YOUTUBE | Chineke! – Europe’s First Black Orchestra Concert Debut [VIDEO]

The Violin Channel
2015-09-15

Debut concert performance of the Chineke! Orchestra – Europe’s first professional orchestra made up entirely of musicians of colour.

The 60-piece ensemble, founded by British double bassist Chichi Nwanoku, was established with the objective of making a conscious effort to redress the racial balance in classical music.

Programme includes: Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, Brahms ‘Variations on a theme by Haydn’, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s ‘Ballade for Orchestra’ and Philip Herbert’s ‘Elegy’ [a memorial to Stephen Lawrence].

Recorded live at London’s Southbank Centre, 13th September 2015 – as part of the ‘Africa Utopia Festival’.

Dr. Wanda Wyporska on Witchcraft Persecution

WandaWyporskaWitchcraft
2014-09-07

Dr. Wanda Wyporska

A show reel of Dr Wanda Wyporska talking about witchcraft for the BBC BAME expert days – 2014

New Documentary Reveals the Strange Life of Korla Pandit

NBC Bay Area (KNTV)
San Jose, California
2015-08-27

In the category of unusual entertainers, there are few who could hold a candle to Korla Pandit. And now a new documentary will feature his life. Joe Rosato Jr. reports.

Trevor Noah Brings ‘A Different Perspective’ as Daily Show Host

NBC News
2015-09-23

Amber Payne, Managing Editor of @NBCBLK

Trevor Noah is poised to take The Daily Show throne next week and the South African comedian says his biracial and cultural background will impact and inform his perspective as host.

“It just gives me a different perspective. I feel everyone has their perspective because of where they’ve come from,” Noah told NBCBLK. “I’ve never been ashamed to say, nor do I shy away from that fact that I am black. I’ve grown up black, black is the only existence I’ve ever known. But it’s strange when you live in a world where people go ‘OK but biracial—then which piece of this, which piece of that?'”

Noah grew up under Apartheid in South Africa to a white Swiss father and a black South African mother. While his comedy is often unapologetically about race and racism, he is careful not to equate the racial tensions in the United States to the divisions and tensions in South Africa…

Read the entire article here.